1 Samuel 2:18-20 ; Luke 4:41-52
December 27, 2009
This morning, with a little help from Samuel and Luke, I’m going to talk about family values. I need to start by saying that this sermon – or rather the ideas in this sermon – are a work in progress. That happens sometimes. In my thinking and studying of the bible during the week, I am led to an idea that I think is important, where I know the text really might have something to say to us, but I am not yet settled on exactly what that is. This puts me in a more vulnerable situation than normally, but it doesn’t make sense to me that I should wait until I have completely “figured out” what the best, right interpretation of a text might be before I preach about it in this community. Bottom line: I need you guys. I know this might surprise you, but I don’t always have the right interpretation of the bible .
So, here’s my earnest attempt at figuring out what the scriptures might be saying to us this week about family values even though I don’t feel like I’ve quite hit the nail on the head yet. I hope you brought your hammers.
Many people say the bible tells us what family values are, and often I think they are looking to the wrong parts of the bible for those values. But, I think the topic of family does come up in Jesus’ life and that the concept is something Christians need to think about in light of our scriptures. So this topic is something I think is extremely important, but in our context and in our society I think it’s extremely hard to figure out what Christian family values are.
I think these two passages might be one place to look for our definition. And in the end, I don’t think it looks much like what passes for family values today in the world of conventional wisdom and public conversation. For one thing, it’s usually assumed family values are about a nuclear family…mom, dad, kids. And there’s a problem with this that has to be addressed before any conversation about family values can take place. Such a singular, narrow definition of nuclear family is wildly off the mark when it comes to families today. We know that just doesn’t cut it. There are many families that don’t fit such a stereotype that both seek and exemplify family values. And it’s easy for such families to feel excluded from the conversation from the get go if that narrow definition is accepted as the starting place. Believe me, I know.
But this morning I’m focusing more on a conversation between us – those of us gathered here. And I know we don’t start with such a false assumption. So setting that aside, there’s another problem with family being defined as nuclear or even extended family, even once you’ve appropriately expanded the definition of these things. Both Luke and Samuel add a component to family values that is often missing from our society’s debate, and it might be missing from our conversations about family values as well. Luke and Samuel add a whole other family. They add God’s family – specifically they both are raised to some degree by the synagogue…the equivalent of church for us.
In our passages, the young Jesus and Samuel are being taught family values. And for each of them, the synagogue plays a huge role in this teaching. Jesus even rebukes his parents a little bit for assuming it should be otherwise. They had come to get their child and take him back to his nuclear family because that’s where children belong – that’s where children are raised. But Jesus names another parent – one who has as much, if not more, of a claim on his life and growth as Mary and Joseph. God.
He adds this other family – the family of God – but that’s not where the story ends. It’s not that Jesus was raised by the synagogue alone. Even though Jesus rebukes his folks, Mary and Joseph don’t leave him in the synagogue with the teachers and priest. He may have spent three days in the temple learning, but in the end we’re told, “he went down with Mary and Joseph to Nazareth, and was obedient to them.” It was there, with his nuclear and extended family, that we are told he increased in wisdom and years.
This is the “O thank God!” moment for those of us raising and caring for children. Jesus may have defied his parents that one time in order to be with his “other” family, but then we find out that to be like Jesus, children are indeed to be obedient to us. Whew.
Of course, it’s much more complicated than that. Jesus was, without a doubt, a part of two families. It’s a false dichotomy to say that Jesus was raised by his nuclear family during those formative years just because that’s who he lived with. We know Mary and Joseph were Jewish, and Jesus grew up in the faith community of which his family was a part. For example, later in his life Jesus would feel the need in one case to reject his earthly family in order to honor his divine parent. And it’s clear he found his motivation for doing so in the scriptures and presumably the teachings he heard in the synagogue growing up. It’s not one over the other. Both are necessary – our family and the church – to help us with family values.
We have number of children here in our congregation, and I suspect most of us are pretty uncomfortable with the church playing an equal role in raising these kids along side their parents and grandparents. Families are surely uncomfortable with this because, I can say from first hand experience, we are fiercely protective of our authority in raising our children.
And the church is uncomfortable because frankly we don’t want that kind of authority over someone else’s child. We’ll teach our kids in Sunday school, but when the big issues arise in their lives – when the big questions come along – we go along with what the parents do regardless of our feelings about it.
But in our Christian story, children are a part of two families and both are responsible for instilling family values in some kind of mixture of authority, even if it’s not equal. Now, even if we accept this premise, there are some pretty big questions unanswered: First, what are those values we’re both supposed to instill? Who decides? What happens when there is a difference either within or between the two families? How is that adjudicated?
Let’s start with the question of what are the family values? If we’re to work together – church family and home family – what do we believe we should teach our children about how to negotiate a world and a culture that is as difficult for them as it is for us to navigate without being pulled into the destructive things we know are out there? Can we – do we even want to – come to any general agreement about what we should be teaching our children?
This year when present buying/giving time came up, I sent an email to my family about Lydia and Christmas based on values I have learned in the church over the years. The church has taught me with great clarity about the “problems” with Christmas as it is celebrated in popular culture. And we are passing these problems along to our children. So, I wrote an email that was as clear as I could that I did not want them to give Lydia presents. I said that I was not just being nice letting them off the hook somehow, but that I was asking explicitly that they not buy her anything.
I learned this value in sermons, adult ed classes, Sunday school, conversations, and minutes for mission. Don’t give toys, give to heifer. Don’t just give to your kids, but give to others. Don’t define “gift” as material goods. Now, I know I won’t – in fact don’t – follow these very clear prescriptions perfectly. I bought each and every one of my nieces and nephews a gift this year. And when Lydia can actually ask for something, well we’ll see how good I am at passing on these church family values. I think it’s safe to say that I will lose the battle more often than not – and I beg for your sympathy when that happens. But the point is my church taught me some family values that I promise I did not learn in my family of origin. I know what those values are and they are pretty clear. And I’m glad I have learned them, and I want my daughter to learn them as well. Then, we can at least make baby steps toward reaching them.
We can, I think, declare some things with confidence. We value kindness over popularity. We value cooperation over competition. We value giving over hoarding. We value acceptance and embracing difference over judgment. We value questioning rather than imposing beliefs. We value peace over violence. I think we can and should have shared values as a church and pass them on to parents and children alike.
But what about the times when there is disagreement about what our values are? In general, the assumption is basically that “home” family trumps “church” family every time. But, in the Christian story, if we believe we are a part of God’s family, not just our own insular families, do we not give our child over to something greater than our own authority? Isn’t God to be the ultimate authority? And church is a placed where the will of God is discerned in community. Aren’t there times we should defer to what the community has discerned? If we’re to accept the text about Jesus, it’s not as easy as one family always “winning” over the other. Jesus was right about being in the temple, opening himself to the wisdom there, and Mary was right to bring him home and offer the nurture and guidance of parents, grandparents and extended family.
Take a moment and think about the kids here in our congregation. When you think about it, there is in fact an instinct in this congregation to be that second “family”. Certainly I feel that with Lydia; like when I ask Janice at 9 a.m. this morning if she will watch Lydia during worship and she doesn’t hesitate to say yes. I see it when Dan and Sara sing in the choir and Slane is handed off effortlessly to one of many willing surrogates in the church. I notice it at fellowship time when kids sit together, and parents help kids other than their own get their food and monitor when they go for yet another piece of cake. I see it when the kids run around in fellowship hall and the sanctuary as if it is their home.
We already provide a second family and home, but is there room to do it better? Might those of us who bring children to church submit ourselves and the kids to the wisdom of the group sometimes in addition to our own? Don’t we sometimes need help with family values? Should we take time to figure out how to negotiate differences of opinion in what constitutes family values.
Church doesn’t function the same way now as it did in Jesus’ day, and there’s probably no reason it should. And that means that how we work together as parents and church will be pretty different from what happens in these stories, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to learn here. I think we all would do well to add some church community help to child rearing from time to time. This requires a lot of all of us. There has to be deep trust. We need to have spaces and time to talk about the complicated issues that face all of us when we try to figure out what our values are in this day and age.
The obvious assumption that has been underlying all of this is that it’s not just about instilling values in our children. We need each other to cultivate Christian values in ourselves! And we need to do it together. I am only willing to hand over some rearing responsibility to you if I know what your values are, what our shared values are and how we will negotiate differences. We have to talk about these things first.
I am a parent, and I already trust you all a great deal – I trust your wisdom and insights. Obviously I don’t speak on behalf of all parents, but I truly desire a community that has values to teach me and Lydia because I know left to my own devices, I too often just do what everyone else is doing because it’s easy. I need a reality check – a morality check. I think I’m not alone. This is often why people caring for and raising children are drawn to church.
So what role should the church play in teaching children here family values? If we do have a role, how can we go about figuring out what those values might be? How would we talk about the really difficult issues where there are differences of opinion? The children will grow – will they grow in wisdom? How can we help them do that?
So that’s it. My best attempt at figuring out what we might learn from the families of which Jesus was a part. I think in the end I’m suggesting that we don’t do quite enough. We don’t have many conversations about shared values we want to pass on to our children. We don’t have a lot of chances to talk with each other about these things, even for people who are responsible in some way for raising children. But, I wonder if we don’t need some improvement. What do you think?
God is the parent of us all. Ultimately we are in each other’s family by virtue of our baptism, and we should all be learning our values from God, and passing those values on to our children. Certainly we need all the help we can get. Amen.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
What Peace? Christmas Eve
Isaiah 9:2-7; Luke 2:1-14
“Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to all whom God favors.” Great quote! But what is this peace of which the angels sing? Do we really know? There are different kinds of peace. And when Jesus is born, it is exactly that question we are faced with – which peace do we seek?
There is “false peace.” This is the peace we think we find when we just shut out and ignore the difficult realities all around us. We isolate ourselves by ignoring the wars and abuse, the poverty and chaos, pretending they don’t exist because they don’t seem to affect us. It’s a peace of luxury and privilege. Most people in the world can’t find this peace even if they wanted to. But those who are living in relative comfort can choose to ignore the chaos and violence. They may feel peace – but it is a false peace. Jesus exposed the lie of this peace because in his ministry he made visible the invisible people and those who had been ignoring them had to confront the realities of their day.
There’s also “forced peace.” When Jesus was born, there was a forced peace. Octavian was the ruler who brought Peace to Rome, earning him the distinction, Augustus. He brought the famous Pax Romana: Under Octavian, civil war ended and the devastation of 100 years of bloodshed began slowly to be repaired. Rome was weary of death, weary of bloodshed, weary of destruction. And Octavian changed the course of history. That certainly earns him pretty high marks as a head of state – if he had been so inclined, and he was not so inclined, he probably would have won reelection in a land slide.
But those in authority are seldom what they seem. Octavian ushered in the Pax Romana, but the cost of his “peace” was the surrender of human liberties. As one historian puts it, “what appeared on the outside to be so satisfying – so pacifying – was vacuous. The soul of the empire was tyranny – the autocratic dominance of the many by the few.”
For some, Octavian – Augustus – was a messiah, bringing peace on earth after so much war and bloodshed. It didn’t matter that he did so using violence and oppression as the means to that peaceful end. But for the early Christians, Jesus’ very birth was a response to this forced peace. They were not bathed in the peace of Pax Romana – they were the ones who suffered for the cause. “In those days, a decree went out from Emperor Augustus…” That is how Luke sets up Jesus birth. It is a contrast to all things Augustus; a response to the forced peace of Pax Romana.
Finally, there’s God’s peace. God-as-human dives into the world of hurt and brokenness. God-as-human enters into the muck of life and feels deeply with us. God does not stay distant, indifferent to the world and its pain. God’s peace is not false peace. In the same way, Jesus, the Messiah, comes not to overthrow Roman authorities, not to work with them, and not to punish the enemies of the Jews. In short, not to use force to gain peace for the oppressed. Jesus comes to proclaim none are outside the Realm of God: Not the lowly, not the outcast, and not the enemy.
The prophet Isaiah gives us further insight into the peace Jesus brought. It is Isaiah that Jesus and the disciples and early Christians drew on for their ministry. And Isaiah brings great clarity to the difference between forced peace and God’s peace. Peace for Isaiah is a time with no wars and no bloodshed. “The boots and the bloodied garments of the soldiers are burned for good.” But this time would not come because the Israelites defeat their enemy in a violent war.
Instead, Isaiah mentions the “Day of Midian”. This reference is significant. It sends us back to when God called Gideon as the first judge. Israel was being oppressed by the Midianites, so God told Gideon to get an army together. When Gideon did as God asked, God informed him that the army was too big. God kept making Gideon scale back the army until he had only 300 soldiers. Then, instead of arming them with weapons of war, he was to give them clay pitchers, trumpets and torches.
The so called “army” surrounded the camp of the enemy and on Gideon’s signal the “soldiers” smashed their clay pitchers, lifted their lit torches and blew their trumpets. This was enough to defeat their enemy – sending them running away. God delivered Israel from a vast, murderous horde with only 300 “soldiers” and absolutely no violence.
Where is that kind of peace today? Where is peace waged instead of war? Where is the peace that comes when people choose compassion and nonviolence over the bloody defeat of their enemies? I think it’s here. Here in each of us and what we do together.
I have been thinking a lot about our church and peace lately. And I truly believe we are waging peace, and doing it in the face of a culture that says it’s not worth it and it’s not effective. Over and over I have been struck by how the leaders of this church work together. There is no doubt that we have a diversity of theological and political views in our congregation. This obviously leads to differences of opinion about the vision, future and ministry of our church. I wish you all could be in the session meetings. The elders believe the most important thing is seeking God’s will for us, and so that under girds all discussions, all disagreements, all decisions. People assume the good intentions of each other. This creates peaceful leadership that, let’s be honest, is not found in all churches.
The many ways we do ministry in Grinnell and the larger world bring God’s peace to people beset by the violence of war and poverty. We do not seek the false peace of ignorance and avoidance. We seek peace by making the often invisible visible, and then acting in compassion to change the realities that disturb and threaten God’s peace for them.
And you should be so lucky as to watch our deacons in action. The tender care they have for people in our congregation and the marginalized in our community is peace in action. They sit with, pray with, pray for and love those who are ill and lonely, those who are in crisis or have chronic needs.
I could go on. I really could; except my colleagues in ministry tell me Christmas Eve sermons should be short. But suffice it to say, we bring not the false peace or forced peace of the dominant culture. We bring God’s peace in so many ways. You may think these things are small. You may laugh at mentioning them in the same breath as war and global poverty. You would be wrong. They are not small. Certainly none smaller than the baby born in the middle of a strong Empire keeping peace through force.
Messiahs like Augustus exist today, and they tell us that in order to protect what we have, the greatest, most moral democracy on earth and the peace and security we enjoy, we are willing to do anything – including keeping this “peace” by force. Maybe President Obama was right in his speech in Oslo a couple of weeks ago. In accepting the Nobel Peace prize, he said that as a head of state, he couldn’t live by the example of people like King and Ghandi alone. No head of state, he argued, can reject the use of violence completely, because they are sworn to protect and defend their country. He might be right. That’s why the Messiah didn’t come as a head of state. The Messiah was born a child of poor peasants who had been denied humane shelter and who were being counted by the authorities in order to tax the heck out of them.
The Octavians of our day are making decrees as well. We’re told what is necessary to gain and maintain the peace, but is it the peace of God? As Christians, we have to choose. Do we really believe Jesus is the Messiah – the one who will lead us to God’s peace? Or do we look to the state for our security, prosperity, peace, salvation?
Jesus did not fall prey to the ideology that God’s Realm could only come if the enemy was destroyed. Instead peace, true peace, was born right in the middle of enemy territory offering a different way; the way of peace on earth – true peace for all. I can tell you the same thing is happening here, right in the middle of two wars and staggering global poverty. We here, as individuals and the church, are offering a different way.
Tonight we remember that when God’s peace is placed in the middle of the false and forced peace of the world, it is the beginning of salvation, of possibilities, of peace on earth for all who God favors. And we know the secret – God favors everyone. May that peace be born anew tonight – in our hearts and in our world. Amen.
“Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to all whom God favors.” Great quote! But what is this peace of which the angels sing? Do we really know? There are different kinds of peace. And when Jesus is born, it is exactly that question we are faced with – which peace do we seek?
There is “false peace.” This is the peace we think we find when we just shut out and ignore the difficult realities all around us. We isolate ourselves by ignoring the wars and abuse, the poverty and chaos, pretending they don’t exist because they don’t seem to affect us. It’s a peace of luxury and privilege. Most people in the world can’t find this peace even if they wanted to. But those who are living in relative comfort can choose to ignore the chaos and violence. They may feel peace – but it is a false peace. Jesus exposed the lie of this peace because in his ministry he made visible the invisible people and those who had been ignoring them had to confront the realities of their day.
There’s also “forced peace.” When Jesus was born, there was a forced peace. Octavian was the ruler who brought Peace to Rome, earning him the distinction, Augustus. He brought the famous Pax Romana: Under Octavian, civil war ended and the devastation of 100 years of bloodshed began slowly to be repaired. Rome was weary of death, weary of bloodshed, weary of destruction. And Octavian changed the course of history. That certainly earns him pretty high marks as a head of state – if he had been so inclined, and he was not so inclined, he probably would have won reelection in a land slide.
But those in authority are seldom what they seem. Octavian ushered in the Pax Romana, but the cost of his “peace” was the surrender of human liberties. As one historian puts it, “what appeared on the outside to be so satisfying – so pacifying – was vacuous. The soul of the empire was tyranny – the autocratic dominance of the many by the few.”
For some, Octavian – Augustus – was a messiah, bringing peace on earth after so much war and bloodshed. It didn’t matter that he did so using violence and oppression as the means to that peaceful end. But for the early Christians, Jesus’ very birth was a response to this forced peace. They were not bathed in the peace of Pax Romana – they were the ones who suffered for the cause. “In those days, a decree went out from Emperor Augustus…” That is how Luke sets up Jesus birth. It is a contrast to all things Augustus; a response to the forced peace of Pax Romana.
Finally, there’s God’s peace. God-as-human dives into the world of hurt and brokenness. God-as-human enters into the muck of life and feels deeply with us. God does not stay distant, indifferent to the world and its pain. God’s peace is not false peace. In the same way, Jesus, the Messiah, comes not to overthrow Roman authorities, not to work with them, and not to punish the enemies of the Jews. In short, not to use force to gain peace for the oppressed. Jesus comes to proclaim none are outside the Realm of God: Not the lowly, not the outcast, and not the enemy.
The prophet Isaiah gives us further insight into the peace Jesus brought. It is Isaiah that Jesus and the disciples and early Christians drew on for their ministry. And Isaiah brings great clarity to the difference between forced peace and God’s peace. Peace for Isaiah is a time with no wars and no bloodshed. “The boots and the bloodied garments of the soldiers are burned for good.” But this time would not come because the Israelites defeat their enemy in a violent war.
Instead, Isaiah mentions the “Day of Midian”. This reference is significant. It sends us back to when God called Gideon as the first judge. Israel was being oppressed by the Midianites, so God told Gideon to get an army together. When Gideon did as God asked, God informed him that the army was too big. God kept making Gideon scale back the army until he had only 300 soldiers. Then, instead of arming them with weapons of war, he was to give them clay pitchers, trumpets and torches.
The so called “army” surrounded the camp of the enemy and on Gideon’s signal the “soldiers” smashed their clay pitchers, lifted their lit torches and blew their trumpets. This was enough to defeat their enemy – sending them running away. God delivered Israel from a vast, murderous horde with only 300 “soldiers” and absolutely no violence.
Where is that kind of peace today? Where is peace waged instead of war? Where is the peace that comes when people choose compassion and nonviolence over the bloody defeat of their enemies? I think it’s here. Here in each of us and what we do together.
I have been thinking a lot about our church and peace lately. And I truly believe we are waging peace, and doing it in the face of a culture that says it’s not worth it and it’s not effective. Over and over I have been struck by how the leaders of this church work together. There is no doubt that we have a diversity of theological and political views in our congregation. This obviously leads to differences of opinion about the vision, future and ministry of our church. I wish you all could be in the session meetings. The elders believe the most important thing is seeking God’s will for us, and so that under girds all discussions, all disagreements, all decisions. People assume the good intentions of each other. This creates peaceful leadership that, let’s be honest, is not found in all churches.
The many ways we do ministry in Grinnell and the larger world bring God’s peace to people beset by the violence of war and poverty. We do not seek the false peace of ignorance and avoidance. We seek peace by making the often invisible visible, and then acting in compassion to change the realities that disturb and threaten God’s peace for them.
And you should be so lucky as to watch our deacons in action. The tender care they have for people in our congregation and the marginalized in our community is peace in action. They sit with, pray with, pray for and love those who are ill and lonely, those who are in crisis or have chronic needs.
I could go on. I really could; except my colleagues in ministry tell me Christmas Eve sermons should be short. But suffice it to say, we bring not the false peace or forced peace of the dominant culture. We bring God’s peace in so many ways. You may think these things are small. You may laugh at mentioning them in the same breath as war and global poverty. You would be wrong. They are not small. Certainly none smaller than the baby born in the middle of a strong Empire keeping peace through force.
Messiahs like Augustus exist today, and they tell us that in order to protect what we have, the greatest, most moral democracy on earth and the peace and security we enjoy, we are willing to do anything – including keeping this “peace” by force. Maybe President Obama was right in his speech in Oslo a couple of weeks ago. In accepting the Nobel Peace prize, he said that as a head of state, he couldn’t live by the example of people like King and Ghandi alone. No head of state, he argued, can reject the use of violence completely, because they are sworn to protect and defend their country. He might be right. That’s why the Messiah didn’t come as a head of state. The Messiah was born a child of poor peasants who had been denied humane shelter and who were being counted by the authorities in order to tax the heck out of them.
The Octavians of our day are making decrees as well. We’re told what is necessary to gain and maintain the peace, but is it the peace of God? As Christians, we have to choose. Do we really believe Jesus is the Messiah – the one who will lead us to God’s peace? Or do we look to the state for our security, prosperity, peace, salvation?
Jesus did not fall prey to the ideology that God’s Realm could only come if the enemy was destroyed. Instead peace, true peace, was born right in the middle of enemy territory offering a different way; the way of peace on earth – true peace for all. I can tell you the same thing is happening here, right in the middle of two wars and staggering global poverty. We here, as individuals and the church, are offering a different way.
Tonight we remember that when God’s peace is placed in the middle of the false and forced peace of the world, it is the beginning of salvation, of possibilities, of peace on earth for all who God favors. And we know the secret – God favors everyone. May that peace be born anew tonight – in our hearts and in our world. Amen.
When God is a Child
Micah 5:2-5; Luke 1:39-55
December 20, 2009: Fourth Sunday of Advent
I know Dan just read it – but in a minute I want to set the scene again. Not because it’s an unfamiliar story – that of Mary and Elizabeth, but precisely because it’s familiar to us. Sometimes, when stories are familiar, our ears hear what they have always heard and some words are at risk of being lost to us. For me, this is one of those stories. It’s familiar and as soon as it begins, the scene starts to take shape in my mind. And it’s a hushed scene – Mary and Elizabeth ambivalent about the news they just heard. They vacillate between excited and scared, expectant and doubtful. They are whispering because there are some people in the next room none too happy about these two pregnancies. Elizabeth is too old and Mary – well Mary is too inexperienced. I’ve even imagined them both a little embarrassed by the whole thing.
But the Holy spirit turned up the volume for me this week so I could hear some previously missed words and phrases. And I realized that I vastly underestimated these women. They were not embarrassed, they were bold! And this scene was not quiet, it was not hushed, it was not still. Right away we hear that Mary set out to Elizabeth’s “with haste.” In other words, by the time Mary got there she was probably out of breath – greeting her relative in panting excitement. Then, as soon as breathless Mary greeted Elizabeth, the child in Elizabeth’s womb danced, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed in nothing less than a loud cry, “Blessed are you, Mary!” There was no whispering here. And they are excited, and proud.
Mary’s hymn continues on in loud excitement and joy, amazement and importance. I have heard many modern versions of this song of Mary’s, and most are ethereal, high floating melodic pieces of music sung by the soprano with the beautiful voice, standing in for Mary. But I think Mary responded in kind to Elizabeth. Her song was loud, filled with joy. “My soul magnifies God!”
The truth is, when we have good news, we want to tell our friends – especially our friends that will really understand. We want to be together in some way, sharing the moment. It is a human instinct. At session this week, Dan McCue was telling us about all of the “groups” that are out there on facebook: which is a social networking site. People can join these groups based on common interests and likes, and the possibilities for these groups are nearly endless. There are groups for people who love the Bears or Danicing with the Stars. I found one group called: “When I am bored I, I go on Facebook and join tons of pointless groups.” This group has 128,000 members. The sheer number of groups and participants in them tells me people hunger to connect with someone they feel a common bond with: People who really “get” them.
And I’m sure that’s partly why Mary went, post haste, to visit Elizabeth. They were sharing something in common that few others could understand. But that’s not all that was going on between these two women. They were doing something people in these facebook groups generally are not. They were coming together to share the moment with each other – but also with God. They knew it was because of God that they were pregnant with hope that would change the world. That’s why Elizabeth shouts her greeting and why Mary belts out her song. In short, Mary ran to Elizabeth’s house in order to worship!
When we worship together here, it is not ultimately because we like each other and can relate to the things that go on in our every day lives, though these things are surely true. We come to worship because of our common hope and belief in the possibilities found in Christ. We sing to God in a loud voice. We celebrate Jesus’ birth and resurrection. We are drawn to each other because we know – we know that this is where hope is born and where we can be as changed by that hope as Mary and Elizabeth were that day.
We see the change that took place in Mary through the words of her song. Her whole orientation toward the world and her role in it shifted after she was visited by the angel and became pregnant. She realized that being filled with the spirit of God meant she had a responsibility to share that spirit with the world. She had to give birth to this new world she could feel taking shape in the core of her being. When God takes up residence inside her and waits to be born as a child, out comes this hymn – a song that would ring though people’s hearts for 2,000 years and counting, and inspire them to live differently, live in service to others, and bring peace on earth.
It’s the song of a prophet. In fact, Mary’s song and the themes found in Luke’s gospel story about Jesus’ birth have a familiar ring to anyone who knows their Hebrew scriptures intimately. The prophet Micah was active when Israel was “under siege” by foreign powers, and domestically the people were subject to the whims of the powerful – both religious and political. Priests, prophets and judges were self-serving and corrupt. Micah railed against socioeconomic injustice, and he spoke out in defense of shepherds and poor farmers whose lands were being exploited by the rich.
But Micah had a message – his own hymn – of divine forgiveness and hope, even with all of that going on. Even as he spoke against the injustices around him, he spoke of the future restoration of the temple and looked forward to universal peace. That peace would come in the form of a messenger, and this messenger is befitting of a prophet on the side of the poor and oppressed. It is not a king or high priest – it is a child born of the “little clan” of Bethlehem who becomes a shepherd. Sound familiar? Bethlehem, shepherds, songs of hope for the lowly and exploited. Mary is the Micah of her day, and Luke uses Micah to tell the Christmas story we hear and love every year.
It’s important to notice that neither Mary nor Micah were not blind to reality. Mary sings the truth of the broken world she lives in, even as she knows God will change all that. The powerful will lose their power over the people and the rich will see the hungry and give them food. Micah, too lays it out starkly at first: “We are walled around with a wall, and siege is laid against us. With a rod they strike our ruler on the cheek.” Pretty bleak stuff. But in the next breath he says that from the very ones under siege would come someone who would bring peace and an end to that oppression. Both Mary and Micah knew the pain of reality. What gave them joy – deep joy – was the belief that this reality was only temporary; because God was about to be born as a child.
Somehow Mary knew her child would bring an end to an era and a beginning for humanity. When God is a child, the era of kings and lords and soldiers and overseers and hunger and oppression ends. A new world is born right in the middle of it all as a child…and then that world begins to grow.
So what is our hymn? When we come to worship, are we not like Mary and Elizabeth? Don’t we also expect God to do amazing things through us and in the world? We come and greet each other out of breath – because we have run from the world and taken a temporary break from those things that dampen our song with their monotones of individualism and consumerism. We come in haste because we know that here we will find something different. Here the Spirit will sing a different song that will fill our hearts, sear through our bodies…and that is so refreshing. Once moved by this spirit we can’t help be sing a song like Micah’s and Mary’s. A song of joy in the unexpected and hope that God will change the world and bring universal peace – no matter how bad it looks out there. What a great song!
Coming together – our worship – seems particularly important during the Christmas “season”. Ever since “black Friday” the worldly story about Christmas has washed over us all. But we in the church have a different story – we have Advent, which began two days after black Friday. Advent is a really weird thing. Very few people outside the church understand its importance. Even in the church many of us don’t really know why we insist on slowly going through the advent season before we get to the Christmas carols and birth of Christ. Four weeks of strange and hard to sing Advent hymns before we break out in the familiar, wonderful “Joy to the World!”
But that’s partly the point – the strangeness of the songs. Mary’s song was strange – unlikely, improbable, and not the familiar hymns of the Empire. The truth is, our Christmas Carols used to be strange too. They tell of the Good News that God comes as a child, which we know threatens the powerful and the rich. Yet they have been co-opted by those very people and become the songs of the Empire. They are played over and over again through the loud speakers in the churches of consumerism: The stores and the malls. And they have become so familiar they have lost their power to change the world. Instead they inspire us to keep things exactly as they’ve always been. They’re nostalgic, not subversive. They “take us back”, not “move us toward the realm of God.” They cheer us up when we are shopping instead of changing our whole world view.
Advent, is an answer to that. If we are prepared for Christmas, those songs will sound different to us. Once again they will say that when God is a child, the world shakes and new things are bout to emerge.
Another weird thing about Advent is although we are waiting for that time when Jesus is born and the world changes, we are also watching for the end of all that competes with God’s realm. This end is not looming out in the future somewhere waiting to descend violently upon us. That end – God’s realm – is in us. We are pregnant with the Realm of God. And it comes through birth, not by force. It comes by presenting something so new and different to the world that other ways of living begin to look foolish and no longer have a hold on us. Things like war and violence looks foolish! Not sometimes necessary or “just”, but absolutely ridiculous as we sing our new song in joy and hope.
What we do here, our worship, is extraordinary and exciting. Stepping away from what’s called “normal” and boldly, excitedly, breathlessly telling each other what God has done and what we know God will do. Mary’s song sets the stage for the most amazing birth. And our worship sets the stage for what can happen when we return to the world and expose the lie; showing people that what we think is normal is not what is true or inevitable.
And so we can find JOY in our Advent waiting, and peace in not rushing to Christmas with the rest of the world. It’s the joy Mary and Elizabeth find before they give birth. Joy in the waiting, not in the rush and bustle and immediacy of the “Christmas spirit” sold to us every other day of the week. We like Mary realize the extraordinary fact that the possibility is here…right here in us. When God is a child, our song changes and proclaims a whole new world that is now possible. A world where the thoughts of the proud are scattered, rulers lose their power, the lowly are lifted up, the hungry are fed with good things, the things we thought brought richness are exposed as empty; when God is a child, there can be peace – universal peace. My soul magnifies God! Amen.
December 20, 2009: Fourth Sunday of Advent
I know Dan just read it – but in a minute I want to set the scene again. Not because it’s an unfamiliar story – that of Mary and Elizabeth, but precisely because it’s familiar to us. Sometimes, when stories are familiar, our ears hear what they have always heard and some words are at risk of being lost to us. For me, this is one of those stories. It’s familiar and as soon as it begins, the scene starts to take shape in my mind. And it’s a hushed scene – Mary and Elizabeth ambivalent about the news they just heard. They vacillate between excited and scared, expectant and doubtful. They are whispering because there are some people in the next room none too happy about these two pregnancies. Elizabeth is too old and Mary – well Mary is too inexperienced. I’ve even imagined them both a little embarrassed by the whole thing.
But the Holy spirit turned up the volume for me this week so I could hear some previously missed words and phrases. And I realized that I vastly underestimated these women. They were not embarrassed, they were bold! And this scene was not quiet, it was not hushed, it was not still. Right away we hear that Mary set out to Elizabeth’s “with haste.” In other words, by the time Mary got there she was probably out of breath – greeting her relative in panting excitement. Then, as soon as breathless Mary greeted Elizabeth, the child in Elizabeth’s womb danced, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed in nothing less than a loud cry, “Blessed are you, Mary!” There was no whispering here. And they are excited, and proud.
Mary’s hymn continues on in loud excitement and joy, amazement and importance. I have heard many modern versions of this song of Mary’s, and most are ethereal, high floating melodic pieces of music sung by the soprano with the beautiful voice, standing in for Mary. But I think Mary responded in kind to Elizabeth. Her song was loud, filled with joy. “My soul magnifies God!”
The truth is, when we have good news, we want to tell our friends – especially our friends that will really understand. We want to be together in some way, sharing the moment. It is a human instinct. At session this week, Dan McCue was telling us about all of the “groups” that are out there on facebook: which is a social networking site. People can join these groups based on common interests and likes, and the possibilities for these groups are nearly endless. There are groups for people who love the Bears or Danicing with the Stars. I found one group called: “When I am bored I, I go on Facebook and join tons of pointless groups.” This group has 128,000 members. The sheer number of groups and participants in them tells me people hunger to connect with someone they feel a common bond with: People who really “get” them.
And I’m sure that’s partly why Mary went, post haste, to visit Elizabeth. They were sharing something in common that few others could understand. But that’s not all that was going on between these two women. They were doing something people in these facebook groups generally are not. They were coming together to share the moment with each other – but also with God. They knew it was because of God that they were pregnant with hope that would change the world. That’s why Elizabeth shouts her greeting and why Mary belts out her song. In short, Mary ran to Elizabeth’s house in order to worship!
When we worship together here, it is not ultimately because we like each other and can relate to the things that go on in our every day lives, though these things are surely true. We come to worship because of our common hope and belief in the possibilities found in Christ. We sing to God in a loud voice. We celebrate Jesus’ birth and resurrection. We are drawn to each other because we know – we know that this is where hope is born and where we can be as changed by that hope as Mary and Elizabeth were that day.
We see the change that took place in Mary through the words of her song. Her whole orientation toward the world and her role in it shifted after she was visited by the angel and became pregnant. She realized that being filled with the spirit of God meant she had a responsibility to share that spirit with the world. She had to give birth to this new world she could feel taking shape in the core of her being. When God takes up residence inside her and waits to be born as a child, out comes this hymn – a song that would ring though people’s hearts for 2,000 years and counting, and inspire them to live differently, live in service to others, and bring peace on earth.
It’s the song of a prophet. In fact, Mary’s song and the themes found in Luke’s gospel story about Jesus’ birth have a familiar ring to anyone who knows their Hebrew scriptures intimately. The prophet Micah was active when Israel was “under siege” by foreign powers, and domestically the people were subject to the whims of the powerful – both religious and political. Priests, prophets and judges were self-serving and corrupt. Micah railed against socioeconomic injustice, and he spoke out in defense of shepherds and poor farmers whose lands were being exploited by the rich.
But Micah had a message – his own hymn – of divine forgiveness and hope, even with all of that going on. Even as he spoke against the injustices around him, he spoke of the future restoration of the temple and looked forward to universal peace. That peace would come in the form of a messenger, and this messenger is befitting of a prophet on the side of the poor and oppressed. It is not a king or high priest – it is a child born of the “little clan” of Bethlehem who becomes a shepherd. Sound familiar? Bethlehem, shepherds, songs of hope for the lowly and exploited. Mary is the Micah of her day, and Luke uses Micah to tell the Christmas story we hear and love every year.
It’s important to notice that neither Mary nor Micah were not blind to reality. Mary sings the truth of the broken world she lives in, even as she knows God will change all that. The powerful will lose their power over the people and the rich will see the hungry and give them food. Micah, too lays it out starkly at first: “We are walled around with a wall, and siege is laid against us. With a rod they strike our ruler on the cheek.” Pretty bleak stuff. But in the next breath he says that from the very ones under siege would come someone who would bring peace and an end to that oppression. Both Mary and Micah knew the pain of reality. What gave them joy – deep joy – was the belief that this reality was only temporary; because God was about to be born as a child.
Somehow Mary knew her child would bring an end to an era and a beginning for humanity. When God is a child, the era of kings and lords and soldiers and overseers and hunger and oppression ends. A new world is born right in the middle of it all as a child…and then that world begins to grow.
So what is our hymn? When we come to worship, are we not like Mary and Elizabeth? Don’t we also expect God to do amazing things through us and in the world? We come and greet each other out of breath – because we have run from the world and taken a temporary break from those things that dampen our song with their monotones of individualism and consumerism. We come in haste because we know that here we will find something different. Here the Spirit will sing a different song that will fill our hearts, sear through our bodies…and that is so refreshing. Once moved by this spirit we can’t help be sing a song like Micah’s and Mary’s. A song of joy in the unexpected and hope that God will change the world and bring universal peace – no matter how bad it looks out there. What a great song!
Coming together – our worship – seems particularly important during the Christmas “season”. Ever since “black Friday” the worldly story about Christmas has washed over us all. But we in the church have a different story – we have Advent, which began two days after black Friday. Advent is a really weird thing. Very few people outside the church understand its importance. Even in the church many of us don’t really know why we insist on slowly going through the advent season before we get to the Christmas carols and birth of Christ. Four weeks of strange and hard to sing Advent hymns before we break out in the familiar, wonderful “Joy to the World!”
But that’s partly the point – the strangeness of the songs. Mary’s song was strange – unlikely, improbable, and not the familiar hymns of the Empire. The truth is, our Christmas Carols used to be strange too. They tell of the Good News that God comes as a child, which we know threatens the powerful and the rich. Yet they have been co-opted by those very people and become the songs of the Empire. They are played over and over again through the loud speakers in the churches of consumerism: The stores and the malls. And they have become so familiar they have lost their power to change the world. Instead they inspire us to keep things exactly as they’ve always been. They’re nostalgic, not subversive. They “take us back”, not “move us toward the realm of God.” They cheer us up when we are shopping instead of changing our whole world view.
Advent, is an answer to that. If we are prepared for Christmas, those songs will sound different to us. Once again they will say that when God is a child, the world shakes and new things are bout to emerge.
Another weird thing about Advent is although we are waiting for that time when Jesus is born and the world changes, we are also watching for the end of all that competes with God’s realm. This end is not looming out in the future somewhere waiting to descend violently upon us. That end – God’s realm – is in us. We are pregnant with the Realm of God. And it comes through birth, not by force. It comes by presenting something so new and different to the world that other ways of living begin to look foolish and no longer have a hold on us. Things like war and violence looks foolish! Not sometimes necessary or “just”, but absolutely ridiculous as we sing our new song in joy and hope.
What we do here, our worship, is extraordinary and exciting. Stepping away from what’s called “normal” and boldly, excitedly, breathlessly telling each other what God has done and what we know God will do. Mary’s song sets the stage for the most amazing birth. And our worship sets the stage for what can happen when we return to the world and expose the lie; showing people that what we think is normal is not what is true or inevitable.
And so we can find JOY in our Advent waiting, and peace in not rushing to Christmas with the rest of the world. It’s the joy Mary and Elizabeth find before they give birth. Joy in the waiting, not in the rush and bustle and immediacy of the “Christmas spirit” sold to us every other day of the week. We like Mary realize the extraordinary fact that the possibility is here…right here in us. When God is a child, our song changes and proclaims a whole new world that is now possible. A world where the thoughts of the proud are scattered, rulers lose their power, the lowly are lifted up, the hungry are fed with good things, the things we thought brought richness are exposed as empty; when God is a child, there can be peace – universal peace. My soul magnifies God! Amen.
Fire: Of Heaven or Hell?
Zephaniah 3:14 - 20; Luke 3:7-18
December 13, 2009
Usually, when we hear about someone in the bible being thrown into the unquenchable “fire”, we all say, “Oh, I know what that means. That’s hell.” And we definitely have fire in this passage. In fact, we have the word “fire” three times. And it’s the same greek word each time. What’s interesting is that we read only two of those fires as “hell”. The third fire i9s in the context of John promising that Jesus is coming to baptize us – baptize us with the Holy Spirit and… fire. And presumably that’s a good thing. So which is it? Is fire from heaven, or is it just another word for hell?
It occurred to me that these three fires might be closer in meaning to each other than we generally assume. When John the Baptist says Jesus will baptize us with the Holy Spirit and fire, we don’t hesitate even for a single moment in understanding “fire” metaphorically. And of course it is a metaphor. And thank God, right? I don’t know about you, but I don’t want actual fire to have any place in the baptisms we do here.
Yet, when we hear about people being thrown into the unquenchable fire, we tend read it more literally. We might even have visions of evil people languishing eternally in a place where fire is all around them and there is nothing they can do about it. But most likely this author meant fire as a metaphor all three times. And maybe, just maybe it is a metaphor for the same thing all through this passage. Maybe it’s not from heaven in one case and another word for hell in the other cases. Maybe in all instances it’s a metaphor for God powerfully coming into our lives and the feeling we have when that happens.
True, it’s hard to get away from the notion that fire is painful. But if we stay in the metaphorical realm, we can read that pain not as unbearable physical burns, or harsh, torturous punishment, but rather the pain we feel when we know we need to change. Change is hard – sometimes even painful. To feel the spirit of God come on you, you might by God’s very presence – God’s light – feel exposed. Think of times when you have read the bible or maybe heard a sermon and all of a sudden what you need to change becomes painfully clear. I think of all those times I encounter passages about giving everything I have to the poor. I feel the pain of the exposure that I’m not doing it and I anticipate the pain I think I would feel if I did.
Now, I wouldn’t be true to the text, or to what we have pieced together of history, if I didn’t acknowledge that John the Baptist may have seen the unquenchable fire as a permanent, painful state; punishment for the wicked. It’s not exactly hell for him – that concept hadn’t developed yet. Nevertheless, a firey judgment was likely a part of John’s vision.
But Luke corrects that view both in his unique presentation of John the Baptist and in his presentation of Jesus’ life. When we compare Luke’s gospel to Mark’s and Matthew’s, we see Luke softens John by adding things the others don’t: notably he adds a conversation between John and the people who followed John into the desert. John is preaching to them, calling on them to repent and “bear fruits worthy of repentance.” Wondering what that might mean in light of their circumstances, the crowds ask him, “What then shall we do?” and John answers. Luke is the only one to include this interchange.
In Luke, John has an ethical dimension to him that is absent in the more stark apocalyptic characterizations in Mark and Matthew. Instead of John baptizing people, calling them to repent because the end is coming, in Luke, when John speaks of baptism, it is a baptism that becomes the beginning of a new life – a new way of being in the world. Luke calls on the people (through the voice of John the Baptist) to completely change the social order. The role of John the Baptist is to remind us that baptism – the metaphorical, illuminating and transforming fire from God – can affect people and make change possible.
So what is John’s answer? What should people do? John lists what the people should do: whoever has two coats must share one; whoever has food must share with those who have none; don’t financially exploit people; don’t allow wage disparity to get out of control. This list, of course, should not be taken as exhaustive, but rather emblematic. He’s talking about the people bringing in a new world order.
But notice it is more than just that the lowly are now glorified and the oppressors are now cast out. Yes, the prophets were concerned with the poor, the widow and orphan. They were railing against the exploitation of the people by the powerful. And Jesus follows in that tradition. He announces his ministry as bringing good news to the poor, proclaiming release to the captives and setting free those who are oppressed. But Luke has something important to add to that prophetic tradition: His explicit inclusion of the tax collectors and soldiers in the Realm of God. This is the core of the message for Luke. It’s more than just an add on – it is at the heart of what he believes Jesus makes possible.
The tax collectors and soldiers aren’t the poor, in fact they have power. Instead they are the despised. Tax collectors were people who collaborated with the local or imperial oppressors and often operated with excessive force, bribery or corruption. They were, in short, morally and occupationally wicked, irrevocably evil. In the same way, soldiers were not good people in the eyes of the Jews. They lived high off the hog and their job was, in part, to make sure the Jews could not do the same. Luke is saying everyone can be refined by the fire – no one is beyond change.
The question of the people – what then shall we do? – has staying power today. And the answer still comes to us; share food and clothing, don’t exploit people for our own gain, and redistribute wealth. But beyond the instructions to the people in the story, Luke is making the larger point to us as well. It’s a point about inclusion and grace and second chances. Just as Luke assumed the despised were included in the Realm of God and just as likely to be changed by this Holy “fire”, so we must believe no one is permanently thrown into some hell of fire. Rather, when the fire is one of baptism and possibility, we realize that we can never write anyone off.
Shortly after the torture memos were made public in April 2009, The Pew Research Center conducted a survey that showed 54% of people who attend church services at least once a week agreed that the use of torture against suspected terrorists is “often” or “sometimes” justified. Surely from this poll we must conclude that the church has lost our way. If we in the church believe torture is justified, we believe some are expendable in the fight for a greater good. And who better to expend than those evil ones who already have a place secured in the unquenchable fire, right?. One can argue we’re doing God’s will by “throwing” the terrorists into prison…our own kind of fire; Torturing them as if it is the worst imaginable hell – because that’s what the bible says will happen anyway.
But what happens when we frame fire with the baptism Jesus brings, instead of with condemnation? By including tax collectors, soldiers and those like them, Luke reminds us that no one is outside the Spirit of Christ. We are the ones who try to make it otherwise – and then justify it by dividing the world into those who deserve good fire and those who deserve hell fire.
I think it’s a good time to put ourselves in the shoes of the crowds of people surrounding John and ask with them, “What then should we do?” Luke’s answer in part is we should open our circle to the despised – giving them the opportunity to be refined, just as we all need refinement in some way. We should offer the love and power of Christ to everyone, because for Luke, no one is outside of the Realm of God: not the poor, not the rich; not the orphan or the despised; not the Jew or the Gentile. Even the most hated people are part of God’s creation.
Luke ends this passage by saying John continued to preach the Good News. Yet fire – even if it is from heaven, doesn’t sound all that pleasant. Is it really “good news” for us? Well, I think it is “good news” for us – especially when that “us” is universal. There is pain, there is brokenness in the world, and change is extremely difficult. But God’s light does shine and gives us and everyone else the opportunity to see reality and then respond with our lives. That is the hope.
That’s what makes it possible for Zephaniah to say to the people “Rejoice! Rejoice! Again I say rejoice!” even when they are standing on the brink of defeat at the hands of the Babylonians. The people were about to lose everything, and the prophets were saying it was because they had forgotten what they were to do: care for the poor and the widow and the orphan. Yet instead of saying that they are forever condemned, forever cut off from God, Zechariah knows that God will never abandon them. They can change, they can listen to God’s word and be inspired by it and live by it. That’s such good news that Zechariah can genuinely say, “Rejoice!”
We too can rejoice even when it feels like we’re in the fire. We too can rejoice that anyone can be moved to live in accordance with God’s will. The hope is in the question: What then shall we do? Because the answer points a way forward. It doesn’t point us to an immediate end, when there’s nothing we can do but wait. It acknowledges that we have to keep waiting for God’s realm, but in the meantime we have choices about how we live, and those choices make all the difference in the world. Amen.
December 13, 2009
Usually, when we hear about someone in the bible being thrown into the unquenchable “fire”, we all say, “Oh, I know what that means. That’s hell.” And we definitely have fire in this passage. In fact, we have the word “fire” three times. And it’s the same greek word each time. What’s interesting is that we read only two of those fires as “hell”. The third fire i9s in the context of John promising that Jesus is coming to baptize us – baptize us with the Holy Spirit and… fire. And presumably that’s a good thing. So which is it? Is fire from heaven, or is it just another word for hell?
It occurred to me that these three fires might be closer in meaning to each other than we generally assume. When John the Baptist says Jesus will baptize us with the Holy Spirit and fire, we don’t hesitate even for a single moment in understanding “fire” metaphorically. And of course it is a metaphor. And thank God, right? I don’t know about you, but I don’t want actual fire to have any place in the baptisms we do here.
Yet, when we hear about people being thrown into the unquenchable fire, we tend read it more literally. We might even have visions of evil people languishing eternally in a place where fire is all around them and there is nothing they can do about it. But most likely this author meant fire as a metaphor all three times. And maybe, just maybe it is a metaphor for the same thing all through this passage. Maybe it’s not from heaven in one case and another word for hell in the other cases. Maybe in all instances it’s a metaphor for God powerfully coming into our lives and the feeling we have when that happens.
True, it’s hard to get away from the notion that fire is painful. But if we stay in the metaphorical realm, we can read that pain not as unbearable physical burns, or harsh, torturous punishment, but rather the pain we feel when we know we need to change. Change is hard – sometimes even painful. To feel the spirit of God come on you, you might by God’s very presence – God’s light – feel exposed. Think of times when you have read the bible or maybe heard a sermon and all of a sudden what you need to change becomes painfully clear. I think of all those times I encounter passages about giving everything I have to the poor. I feel the pain of the exposure that I’m not doing it and I anticipate the pain I think I would feel if I did.
Now, I wouldn’t be true to the text, or to what we have pieced together of history, if I didn’t acknowledge that John the Baptist may have seen the unquenchable fire as a permanent, painful state; punishment for the wicked. It’s not exactly hell for him – that concept hadn’t developed yet. Nevertheless, a firey judgment was likely a part of John’s vision.
But Luke corrects that view both in his unique presentation of John the Baptist and in his presentation of Jesus’ life. When we compare Luke’s gospel to Mark’s and Matthew’s, we see Luke softens John by adding things the others don’t: notably he adds a conversation between John and the people who followed John into the desert. John is preaching to them, calling on them to repent and “bear fruits worthy of repentance.” Wondering what that might mean in light of their circumstances, the crowds ask him, “What then shall we do?” and John answers. Luke is the only one to include this interchange.
In Luke, John has an ethical dimension to him that is absent in the more stark apocalyptic characterizations in Mark and Matthew. Instead of John baptizing people, calling them to repent because the end is coming, in Luke, when John speaks of baptism, it is a baptism that becomes the beginning of a new life – a new way of being in the world. Luke calls on the people (through the voice of John the Baptist) to completely change the social order. The role of John the Baptist is to remind us that baptism – the metaphorical, illuminating and transforming fire from God – can affect people and make change possible.
So what is John’s answer? What should people do? John lists what the people should do: whoever has two coats must share one; whoever has food must share with those who have none; don’t financially exploit people; don’t allow wage disparity to get out of control. This list, of course, should not be taken as exhaustive, but rather emblematic. He’s talking about the people bringing in a new world order.
But notice it is more than just that the lowly are now glorified and the oppressors are now cast out. Yes, the prophets were concerned with the poor, the widow and orphan. They were railing against the exploitation of the people by the powerful. And Jesus follows in that tradition. He announces his ministry as bringing good news to the poor, proclaiming release to the captives and setting free those who are oppressed. But Luke has something important to add to that prophetic tradition: His explicit inclusion of the tax collectors and soldiers in the Realm of God. This is the core of the message for Luke. It’s more than just an add on – it is at the heart of what he believes Jesus makes possible.
The tax collectors and soldiers aren’t the poor, in fact they have power. Instead they are the despised. Tax collectors were people who collaborated with the local or imperial oppressors and often operated with excessive force, bribery or corruption. They were, in short, morally and occupationally wicked, irrevocably evil. In the same way, soldiers were not good people in the eyes of the Jews. They lived high off the hog and their job was, in part, to make sure the Jews could not do the same. Luke is saying everyone can be refined by the fire – no one is beyond change.
The question of the people – what then shall we do? – has staying power today. And the answer still comes to us; share food and clothing, don’t exploit people for our own gain, and redistribute wealth. But beyond the instructions to the people in the story, Luke is making the larger point to us as well. It’s a point about inclusion and grace and second chances. Just as Luke assumed the despised were included in the Realm of God and just as likely to be changed by this Holy “fire”, so we must believe no one is permanently thrown into some hell of fire. Rather, when the fire is one of baptism and possibility, we realize that we can never write anyone off.
Shortly after the torture memos were made public in April 2009, The Pew Research Center conducted a survey that showed 54% of people who attend church services at least once a week agreed that the use of torture against suspected terrorists is “often” or “sometimes” justified. Surely from this poll we must conclude that the church has lost our way. If we in the church believe torture is justified, we believe some are expendable in the fight for a greater good. And who better to expend than those evil ones who already have a place secured in the unquenchable fire, right?. One can argue we’re doing God’s will by “throwing” the terrorists into prison…our own kind of fire; Torturing them as if it is the worst imaginable hell – because that’s what the bible says will happen anyway.
But what happens when we frame fire with the baptism Jesus brings, instead of with condemnation? By including tax collectors, soldiers and those like them, Luke reminds us that no one is outside the Spirit of Christ. We are the ones who try to make it otherwise – and then justify it by dividing the world into those who deserve good fire and those who deserve hell fire.
I think it’s a good time to put ourselves in the shoes of the crowds of people surrounding John and ask with them, “What then should we do?” Luke’s answer in part is we should open our circle to the despised – giving them the opportunity to be refined, just as we all need refinement in some way. We should offer the love and power of Christ to everyone, because for Luke, no one is outside of the Realm of God: not the poor, not the rich; not the orphan or the despised; not the Jew or the Gentile. Even the most hated people are part of God’s creation.
Luke ends this passage by saying John continued to preach the Good News. Yet fire – even if it is from heaven, doesn’t sound all that pleasant. Is it really “good news” for us? Well, I think it is “good news” for us – especially when that “us” is universal. There is pain, there is brokenness in the world, and change is extremely difficult. But God’s light does shine and gives us and everyone else the opportunity to see reality and then respond with our lives. That is the hope.
That’s what makes it possible for Zephaniah to say to the people “Rejoice! Rejoice! Again I say rejoice!” even when they are standing on the brink of defeat at the hands of the Babylonians. The people were about to lose everything, and the prophets were saying it was because they had forgotten what they were to do: care for the poor and the widow and the orphan. Yet instead of saying that they are forever condemned, forever cut off from God, Zechariah knows that God will never abandon them. They can change, they can listen to God’s word and be inspired by it and live by it. That’s such good news that Zechariah can genuinely say, “Rejoice!”
We too can rejoice even when it feels like we’re in the fire. We too can rejoice that anyone can be moved to live in accordance with God’s will. The hope is in the question: What then shall we do? Because the answer points a way forward. It doesn’t point us to an immediate end, when there’s nothing we can do but wait. It acknowledges that we have to keep waiting for God’s realm, but in the meantime we have choices about how we live, and those choices make all the difference in the world. Amen.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Second Sunday of Advent
Malachi 3:1-7; Luke 3:1-6
December 6, 2009: Second Sunday of Advent
For obvious reasons our lectionary couples the New Testament Advent texts with messianic prophetic texts from the Old Testament. But we should be cautious in how we understand the relationship between the Old Testament and New Testament. It’s obvious that the New Testament wants to bear witness to who Jesus was and what his life, death and resurrection meant. However, even though it seems the Old Testament passages point so obviously to John and Jesus, the use of these passages by Christians during the Advent season does not establish that Jesus alone fulfills the Old Testament prophesies.
Instead, we know that these prophetic readings have served many people throughout history – including people of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths. They have helped people connect the newness and hope of their day to the promises God made through the mouths of the prophets so long ago. There is something reassuring in believing that what God promised in these texts does connect to our lives today. It means we can trust in God, in the promises, in the scriptures.
This is true for Christians who believe Jesus was the Messiah God promised. It is true for Jews who see God’s promises fulfilled not in Jesus but rather in the continued hope for a Messiah…in God’s constancy and unchanging message of justice for the poor and outcast. It’s true for Muslims who see the prophets pointing through Jesus to Mohammad. In fact, these texts speak hope again and again into our world, regardless of our particular faith.
We can even see that the prophets in the Old Testament generated different understandings of Jesus as Messiah in our gospels. The prophets offer differing ideas of what kind of person the messenger and Jesus would be, and so people who lived during and after Jesus’ life had to choose which vision from the Old Testament they thought best interpreted the lives of John the Baptist and Jesus.
This all might seem like a pointless digression. But there are two reasons this “digression” is important to our task in Advent. First, if we can start to identify which prophets influenced our gospel writers, we can peel back a layer, so to speak, and discern what is an interpretation by them and what is closer to the original events and stories of Jesus.
Second – and arguably more important – we need to acknowledge that we do exactly the same thing as our gospel writers! We look back to scripture and choose particular parts and passages in order to understand who Jesus is to us today. When there are differing understandings of Jesus between the writers of our scriptures, we have to choose, and we do, whether consciously or not. And that’s okay…if we are conscious we are doing it and as long as our search and decisions are as grounded and genuine and faithful as those of the gospel writers. I trust in that process we will grow more and more aware of who Jesus was and is, and so grow in our faith.
This morning, we have Malachi and John the Baptist. Each reveal their understanding of what was going to happen once the Messiah came:
Malachi prophesied during the post-exilic period. This was when the people were returning from Babylon to Jerusalem, the temple was being rebuilt, and at first there was great hope among the Israelites. But these hopes were soon dashed. The priesthood – the religious authorities to whom the people looked for guidance – had lost their way. They engaged in practices that violated the laws governing ritual sacrifice and they failed to teach the people what it meant to live in covenant with Yahweh. The widows and orphans, and all those the torah demands the people of Yahweh to protect, were suffering under oppression and neglect. And the ones who supposedly knew God and what God expected were doing nothing about it.
Into this setting Malachi promises a messenger will come to remind the people of the covenant. This reminder will come as a shock to the ones who have lost their way, and the message will be painful. However, through this messenger God will draw near and draw the people back into a covenant relationship with God. The problem for the people was that being in a covenant relationship with God was hard – very difficult. The demands of the Torah were hard enough. But faced with so much corruption and suffering they must have wondered whether it would make any difference – whether it was worth the effort.
John the Baptist most likely drew on many prophets as he tried to understand his own role in the coming of the Messiah and who exactly that Messiah would be. When John lived, there were a number of popular messianic movements in which the people were excited by the prospect of an immediate change in the world order. After living under the weight of the Roman Empire, there was much hope in the coming of a Messiah to bring the Empire down and establish a kingdom ruled by this Messiah. Often the leaders of these messianic movements would go off into the desert, and people would follow hoping to hasten this messianic event.
John the Baptist led one such popular movement. While each gospel has a different portrait of John, all of the gospels locate hin in the desert with a following of people being baptized and repenting, announcing that the Messiah was coming soon. This would initiate a violent “cleanup” of the world in which those who had abandoned God’s ways and oppressed God’s people would be met with severe judgment. For John, Jesus was this Messiah.
Having a sense of how Malachi and John saw the Messiah, we can ask how does this affect what they believe should be done in the present? Malachi asks this very question in his text. God says to the people, “return to me, and I will return to you.” And the people ask: “How shall we return?” They seemed eager to know, but the people were cynical. Many looked around and decided morality was of no consequence since evildoers went unpunished.
Although God was calling them to return to relationship with God right then, their hope turned from present possibilities to a dramatic event in the future where God, not they, would take care of the evildoers. In the apocalypse, which was coming soon, God’s justice would be direct and felt deeply. This is similar to the eschatology of John the Baptist. This ethic is not about changing the world; it is about changing oneself in order to avoid the impending, violent judgment of God.
But now we need to ask whether Jesus is the Messiah for which Malachi and John were preparing? In other words, are they “right” about how God would come into our world? This answer is complicated…it’s both “yes” and “no”. In many ways Jesus fit the Messiah role imagined by Malachi and John. He was God incarnate, and his coming did cause people to take notice and he did initiate a new world order, called “the Realm of God”. But he turned out to be a very different Messiah than many imagined; including Malachi and John. We can appreciate the realities Malachi and John faced, and can draw on their hope for something different, but ultimately we depart from their final vision of what that meant for what the people should do in the meantime.
Clearly suffering continues even after Jesus lived and ministered. Jesus’ way of nonviolence did not deter the authorities from killing him, ending his ministry and any hopes on the part of his followers that he would end their suffering once and for all. And so one possible response to persistent suffering would be to decide that Jesus’ way didn’t work. Maybe violence must be met with violence if it is to be defeated.
Another response is to conclude that evil is inevitable and all that is left for us to do is to retreat from the world and ready ourselves for God’s coming judgment, a la John and his followers. And like the people to whom Malachi speaks, we too are tempted to believe that the demanding ethics of Jesus are of no consequence, since it does nothing to change the fact that often evil goes unpunished.
However, as I said earlier, there is a distinct possibility people like Malachi and John had it wrong; at least in part. And so when faced with suffering there is a third option for us other than resignation or retreat. In fact, Luke can be of some help here. He rejects these two options. Instead he believed the early Christians were to live guided by the life and ethics of Jesus, which would build God’s realm here and now. He eventually lets go of the violent, judgmental scenes and focuses on the present. Luke believed that was precisely what Jesus – this new kind of Messiah – did himself. Rather than drawing on prophets like Malachi, Luke looks to Isaiah. Isaiah saw a future where the world would be set right, but he saw this as happening by engaging the present realities.
Think about how Luke begins this passage. This seemingly boring list of names that poor Ed had to read actually has great significance. Luke sets the announcement of Jesus’ coming squarely in the middle of the social and political world of his day. He lists all the rulers and elite priests as a way of setting the stage for Jesus’ ministry. Jesus is born into a world of every day events, of emperors, governors, kings and high priests, of taxation and censuses. Far from preaching that “the end” was near, Jesus life was about transforming this present reality.
All three options are available to us as well. We could fight violence with violence, embracing Empire ethics, believing that we are on the right side and our violence is righteous and will bring about good and peace: an ethic, as we talked about last week, called “the ends justifies the means.” Or we could retreat from the world believing suffering, corruption, and oppression are inevitable. We could go ready ourselves for the end times, and just make sure that we will be on God’s favored list…to hell with everyone else, literally. Of course, as we know “to not act is to act.” All the evil in this world would have our tacit approval because we are not working to address the brokenness and suffering caused by the evils of this world.
Instead, we must choose Luke’s third way. This means that through how we live now, addressing the real issues of our day, we bring a future possibility, imagined by prophets like Isaiah and Jesus, into the present. We can’t succumb to Empire ethics or bow out of the every day politics of our world. We must engage, but as people shaped by a Messiah who came to show us the way of love, of service, compassion, and nonviolence.
So much goes on in the world that is destructive. And at times we passively let it happen by accepting the inevitability. Other times, through our decisions and actions, we even contribute to it. But if we believe Jesus is one example – our example – of the Messiah of which the prophets wrote, then we are called to participate in and change the world, all the while clinging to the ethics of the Realm of God. This is how the world will be transformed. Theologian Walter Wink puts it so well when he writes, “the advent we are waiting for is not an apocalypse but the beginning of human beings again and again as they recommit themselves to bring the Realm of God here.” Amen.
December 6, 2009: Second Sunday of Advent
For obvious reasons our lectionary couples the New Testament Advent texts with messianic prophetic texts from the Old Testament. But we should be cautious in how we understand the relationship between the Old Testament and New Testament. It’s obvious that the New Testament wants to bear witness to who Jesus was and what his life, death and resurrection meant. However, even though it seems the Old Testament passages point so obviously to John and Jesus, the use of these passages by Christians during the Advent season does not establish that Jesus alone fulfills the Old Testament prophesies.
Instead, we know that these prophetic readings have served many people throughout history – including people of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths. They have helped people connect the newness and hope of their day to the promises God made through the mouths of the prophets so long ago. There is something reassuring in believing that what God promised in these texts does connect to our lives today. It means we can trust in God, in the promises, in the scriptures.
This is true for Christians who believe Jesus was the Messiah God promised. It is true for Jews who see God’s promises fulfilled not in Jesus but rather in the continued hope for a Messiah…in God’s constancy and unchanging message of justice for the poor and outcast. It’s true for Muslims who see the prophets pointing through Jesus to Mohammad. In fact, these texts speak hope again and again into our world, regardless of our particular faith.
We can even see that the prophets in the Old Testament generated different understandings of Jesus as Messiah in our gospels. The prophets offer differing ideas of what kind of person the messenger and Jesus would be, and so people who lived during and after Jesus’ life had to choose which vision from the Old Testament they thought best interpreted the lives of John the Baptist and Jesus.
This all might seem like a pointless digression. But there are two reasons this “digression” is important to our task in Advent. First, if we can start to identify which prophets influenced our gospel writers, we can peel back a layer, so to speak, and discern what is an interpretation by them and what is closer to the original events and stories of Jesus.
Second – and arguably more important – we need to acknowledge that we do exactly the same thing as our gospel writers! We look back to scripture and choose particular parts and passages in order to understand who Jesus is to us today. When there are differing understandings of Jesus between the writers of our scriptures, we have to choose, and we do, whether consciously or not. And that’s okay…if we are conscious we are doing it and as long as our search and decisions are as grounded and genuine and faithful as those of the gospel writers. I trust in that process we will grow more and more aware of who Jesus was and is, and so grow in our faith.
This morning, we have Malachi and John the Baptist. Each reveal their understanding of what was going to happen once the Messiah came:
Malachi prophesied during the post-exilic period. This was when the people were returning from Babylon to Jerusalem, the temple was being rebuilt, and at first there was great hope among the Israelites. But these hopes were soon dashed. The priesthood – the religious authorities to whom the people looked for guidance – had lost their way. They engaged in practices that violated the laws governing ritual sacrifice and they failed to teach the people what it meant to live in covenant with Yahweh. The widows and orphans, and all those the torah demands the people of Yahweh to protect, were suffering under oppression and neglect. And the ones who supposedly knew God and what God expected were doing nothing about it.
Into this setting Malachi promises a messenger will come to remind the people of the covenant. This reminder will come as a shock to the ones who have lost their way, and the message will be painful. However, through this messenger God will draw near and draw the people back into a covenant relationship with God. The problem for the people was that being in a covenant relationship with God was hard – very difficult. The demands of the Torah were hard enough. But faced with so much corruption and suffering they must have wondered whether it would make any difference – whether it was worth the effort.
John the Baptist most likely drew on many prophets as he tried to understand his own role in the coming of the Messiah and who exactly that Messiah would be. When John lived, there were a number of popular messianic movements in which the people were excited by the prospect of an immediate change in the world order. After living under the weight of the Roman Empire, there was much hope in the coming of a Messiah to bring the Empire down and establish a kingdom ruled by this Messiah. Often the leaders of these messianic movements would go off into the desert, and people would follow hoping to hasten this messianic event.
John the Baptist led one such popular movement. While each gospel has a different portrait of John, all of the gospels locate hin in the desert with a following of people being baptized and repenting, announcing that the Messiah was coming soon. This would initiate a violent “cleanup” of the world in which those who had abandoned God’s ways and oppressed God’s people would be met with severe judgment. For John, Jesus was this Messiah.
Having a sense of how Malachi and John saw the Messiah, we can ask how does this affect what they believe should be done in the present? Malachi asks this very question in his text. God says to the people, “return to me, and I will return to you.” And the people ask: “How shall we return?” They seemed eager to know, but the people were cynical. Many looked around and decided morality was of no consequence since evildoers went unpunished.
Although God was calling them to return to relationship with God right then, their hope turned from present possibilities to a dramatic event in the future where God, not they, would take care of the evildoers. In the apocalypse, which was coming soon, God’s justice would be direct and felt deeply. This is similar to the eschatology of John the Baptist. This ethic is not about changing the world; it is about changing oneself in order to avoid the impending, violent judgment of God.
But now we need to ask whether Jesus is the Messiah for which Malachi and John were preparing? In other words, are they “right” about how God would come into our world? This answer is complicated…it’s both “yes” and “no”. In many ways Jesus fit the Messiah role imagined by Malachi and John. He was God incarnate, and his coming did cause people to take notice and he did initiate a new world order, called “the Realm of God”. But he turned out to be a very different Messiah than many imagined; including Malachi and John. We can appreciate the realities Malachi and John faced, and can draw on their hope for something different, but ultimately we depart from their final vision of what that meant for what the people should do in the meantime.
Clearly suffering continues even after Jesus lived and ministered. Jesus’ way of nonviolence did not deter the authorities from killing him, ending his ministry and any hopes on the part of his followers that he would end their suffering once and for all. And so one possible response to persistent suffering would be to decide that Jesus’ way didn’t work. Maybe violence must be met with violence if it is to be defeated.
Another response is to conclude that evil is inevitable and all that is left for us to do is to retreat from the world and ready ourselves for God’s coming judgment, a la John and his followers. And like the people to whom Malachi speaks, we too are tempted to believe that the demanding ethics of Jesus are of no consequence, since it does nothing to change the fact that often evil goes unpunished.
However, as I said earlier, there is a distinct possibility people like Malachi and John had it wrong; at least in part. And so when faced with suffering there is a third option for us other than resignation or retreat. In fact, Luke can be of some help here. He rejects these two options. Instead he believed the early Christians were to live guided by the life and ethics of Jesus, which would build God’s realm here and now. He eventually lets go of the violent, judgmental scenes and focuses on the present. Luke believed that was precisely what Jesus – this new kind of Messiah – did himself. Rather than drawing on prophets like Malachi, Luke looks to Isaiah. Isaiah saw a future where the world would be set right, but he saw this as happening by engaging the present realities.
Think about how Luke begins this passage. This seemingly boring list of names that poor Ed had to read actually has great significance. Luke sets the announcement of Jesus’ coming squarely in the middle of the social and political world of his day. He lists all the rulers and elite priests as a way of setting the stage for Jesus’ ministry. Jesus is born into a world of every day events, of emperors, governors, kings and high priests, of taxation and censuses. Far from preaching that “the end” was near, Jesus life was about transforming this present reality.
All three options are available to us as well. We could fight violence with violence, embracing Empire ethics, believing that we are on the right side and our violence is righteous and will bring about good and peace: an ethic, as we talked about last week, called “the ends justifies the means.” Or we could retreat from the world believing suffering, corruption, and oppression are inevitable. We could go ready ourselves for the end times, and just make sure that we will be on God’s favored list…to hell with everyone else, literally. Of course, as we know “to not act is to act.” All the evil in this world would have our tacit approval because we are not working to address the brokenness and suffering caused by the evils of this world.
Instead, we must choose Luke’s third way. This means that through how we live now, addressing the real issues of our day, we bring a future possibility, imagined by prophets like Isaiah and Jesus, into the present. We can’t succumb to Empire ethics or bow out of the every day politics of our world. We must engage, but as people shaped by a Messiah who came to show us the way of love, of service, compassion, and nonviolence.
So much goes on in the world that is destructive. And at times we passively let it happen by accepting the inevitability. Other times, through our decisions and actions, we even contribute to it. But if we believe Jesus is one example – our example – of the Messiah of which the prophets wrote, then we are called to participate in and change the world, all the while clinging to the ethics of the Realm of God. This is how the world will be transformed. Theologian Walter Wink puts it so well when he writes, “the advent we are waiting for is not an apocalypse but the beginning of human beings again and again as they recommit themselves to bring the Realm of God here.” Amen.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
The End: There's Only One
Jeremiah 33:14-16; Luke 21:25-36
First Sunday of Advent: November 29, 2009
These days it might seem like our political parties humiliate and degrade each other out of pure sport. While I can’t speak for all of them – some might actually be doing just that – most, I suspect, are driven by something much less sinister. In fact, it could even be considered “good” on some level. I give the politicians the benefit of the doubt. I think they believe in their own vision of what is best for our country and the world. I think they believe that if things would be done their way, if their philosophy governed the decisions, the economy would be better, health care would be fixed, we would be safe from terrorists, and the world would move toward peace.
However, when politicians really believe in their own worldview, they really believe that the best thing that could happen is to have their political party in power – because once in power, you can do so much good. But you have to be in power first, and so this becomes the end goal – getting elected. Now, you will do anything you have to in order to accomplish that goal. You will oppose everything the other side does, even if you don’t actually oppose it. You will demonize your opponent, even though you know they are as good and genuine as you…just with different beliefs. This is classic, it is common, it is not unique to politics, it is an ethic with a name: utliltarianism, or “the ends justify the means.”
It might seem a little odd at first to say that Christianity is based entirely on this ethic. Well, sort of. Instead of the endS justifying the means, we believe the end justifies the means: singular…end. We start with the end – the ultimate end, and work backwards from there. Advent is the beginning of the church year, the start of our whole faith story and it begins with the end. It begins with a text from Luke that talks about the coming of Christ again into the world, bringing about the end times.
So what’s so important about starting at the end? It all has to do with what we think the “end” is, and when it’s going to happen – or if it’s going to happen. There’s a word for this…”eschatology”, which simply means the study of end things.
We study and think about the end of the story of humanity because what we believe about that time directly impacts what we do in the present and what the content of our faith is. Even if we don’t think we believe anything about the end and so believe it actually has no impact on our actions and faith, we’re wrong.
We all believe something, even if it’s that there is no “end” at all, only infinity stretched out in front of this universe. Even if this is what we believe, a number of questions are still embedded in such a view. For example, does that infinity always include humans? is earth still around one billion years from now? do the living creatures bear any resemblance to us, their evolutionary ancestors? The answers to these questions directly affect what one does in the present, even if we’re not always conscious of it. Think response to global warming, relationship to non human creatures, perspective on what is taught in school. What we believe about the destiny of humankind really affects decisions and actions in the present.
So in Advent we stop and think a little bit about eschatology and what it means to us today. Advent is a season of waiting – it is a pre-beginning actually. We are waiting for the “advent” of something…the beginning of something. For us that new beginning is found in the birth of Jesus. But all along, ever since the earliest Christians, we have been waiting for something else: The Advent of “the end”. Another way people talk about this is we are waiting for the “second coming”, meaning Christ coming again to clean up the mess we have made and set things right.
Our biblical passages this morning are talking about that second kind of waiting. Each author is describing what the “end” will look like. Jeremiah and Luke paint a picture of what they are waiting for – what they are expecting at some point in the future. And why are they doing this? What compels people to think about a future time when things will completely change, or come to an end? Usually it’s because the present is so bad we know it can’t be all there is, forever. All through our scriptures, God promises a new world order – one that addresses the suffering we face. We call it the Realm of God, or the kingdom of God. This is a time when suffering will be non-existent and war, hatred and violence will be no more. And throughout our scriptures people have found comfort and hope in visions of the Realm of God.
At the same time, throughout our scriptures – and throughout human history – all too often people make the more immediate future the object of hope. We describe all kinds of hopes for what will happen soon, in our lifetime, if not in the next week. We hope the economy will turn around. We hope war will end. We hope our political party will be elected. We hope our loved ones will be healed or our grief will end. We hope for a child. And on and on.
Our writers challenge us to think beyond these short term hopes, because what they know is all short term hopes are limited and fall short of the ultimate hope of the coming of God’s realm. And if our lives are driven only by these short terms hopes, instead of the ultimate hope, our actions and faith will inevitably be distorted. Our choices will be affected by lesser goals, rather than the only goal that matters.
We’re not alone in this. The Israelite people made this mistake – hoping only for their own fortunes rather than God’s realm, and their actions led to their own downfall. The disciples did this, hoping for a king to rule over their people and their land and so trying to make Jesus into that king, rather than the very incarnation of God. We are in the same boat, so often looking to short term ends and expedient means, and so the prophets and the author of Luke speak to us as much as the people of their day. Yet each of these writers gives a different picture of “the end” and how that will come about. Our job is to measure those pictures against what Jesus said about the coming of the Realm of God, and then act accordingly.
By the time Jesus was born there were many, many different understandings of what the end times would look like – the one common thread was that virtually all Jews were waiting for the Messiah, who would usher in this end. Some believed this would happen in their lifetime; others believe it was a distant dream. Most, however, believed it would include a divine, wrath-filled judgment of their oppressors and it would be a bloody event.
When Jesus was born, some Jews believed he was the Messiah – that he came to judge the wicked and institute a violent battle against the oppressors that would leave him king of a united Israel. We all know now that was not the Messiah Jesus would be. Yet even after his death, many still saw Jesus this way – only now the bloody apocalyptic moment would be when Jesus comes back…the “2nd coming”. They thought Jesus was coming back soon – very, very soon – to finish the job he started.
Obviously by the time our gospels were written, 50 – 90 years after Jesus death, they were having to deal with a very uncomfortable delay. Jesus had not returned. Their pictures about the end times were once again proven inaccurate and so they rethought what Jesus’ life, death and resurrection meant generations later.
We can see that very rethinking in the gospel of Luke. We see in his writing a shift from the bloody apocalypse to that envisioned by Jesus. We see this shift within the gospel itself – a progression. Our passage retains some of the old ways of thinking, including some disturbing images of Jesus’ 2nd coming; then in the birth and life of Jesus Luke develops a new vision of the end times.
Luke lived after the destruction of the temple and the bloody war that accompanied it. This took place in 70 AD – 40 years after Jesus died. For Luke, this was the 2nd coming. When Jesus is making his prediction in our scripture passage today, Luke intends this as a prediction of a future event for Jesus, but a past event to Luke and his readers. Now, from Luke’s place in history, he believes there is to be an interim period of time of unknown length in which the church is to live as God’s people until Christ comes again; not in his lifetime, but at some indefinite, unspecified point in the future.
This shift from an imminent to indefinite and violent to peaceful eschatology affected Luke’s theology and ethics. An imminent eschatology brings extreme ethics. If the end is near and inevitable, the only thing left to do is to ready oneself to be on the right side of God’s judgment. An indefinite eschatology, on the other hand, supports an ethic that is engaged with the world. No longer expecting their or their children’s lives to be interrupted and the world as they know it brought to an end, the Christians had to figure out how to live in the meantime.
In the coming weeks we will see what Luke believed such a life should look like. For now, what’s important is that in Luke the bloody picture of an immediate end became a future possibility based not on popular messianic hopes, but rather on Jesus’ own understanding of end times: namely the full completion of God’s Realm here on earth. “The realm of God is near,” Jesus says. And then his life became a glimpse of that promised future, and it is that future that shaped Luke’s understanding of who the church needs to be in the present.
We too are left to figure out what to do in the meantime. And what we believe about the “end” – the goal of human history – affects what the “meantime” ethic should be. If it’s a violent, bloody judgment of those left behind after the true Christians are taken up into heaven, we will live as an exclusive club requiring assent to specific creeds and moralistic codes for membership…which is the only way to salvation. On the other hand, if it’s the end of this era and the beginning of a new world order found not through violence but through the creative actions of human kind living as best they can like the realm of God now, we will be a community that embraces the principles of Jesus’ life: nonviolence, inclusion, healing and compassion.
In a culture where the ends justifies the mean, we need to be clear about what the “end” is that we Christians seek so our means are always and only justified by the Realm of God. Sometimes this will coincide with shorter term goals, but sometimes it won’t. In fact at times the ultimate end might indicate actions in the present that will work directly against some of our dearly held short term desires. We need to challenge the notion that the future is a set event, like a movie already written with the dramatic ending. Instead, there is something of a blue print found in Jesus’ life and his vision of God’s realm. But he leaves it to us to complete what he has started.
Like Luke and Jeremiah, we are waiting. And in the meantime we have decisions to make about what it means to be the church – the people of God. We, like the early Church, must sustain the hope of God’s realm through our actions, even though it seems at times that such a realm is in the distant future. If we give up on that, accepting an ethic that serves a lesser, more expedient “end”, we deny God’s promise and destroy both the present and the future hope.
There are a lot of worthy goals, but none ever supersedes the Realm of God. When we speak about the coming of God’s reign, we are concerned about the longest terms interests of the plant or species, or really universe. Such a view precludes a utilitarian ethic where we use people as pawns or violence as a tool in order to accomplish a short term goal. We seem to abandon this perspective all too easily when we are afraid or even just angry. But we know how destructive short term goals can be. The short term goal becomes that which justifies all manner of evil.
This season, as we join the prophets and the gospel writers in asking the question of what we should do while we wait for the Realm of God, let’s ask ourselves what we are working toward and how that affects our ethics and decisions. Is it success, security, invulnerability, power, happiness? What are we willing to do for our short term goals and how does that square with what life looks like in the Realm of God; in the end…the only one that matters. Amen.
First Sunday of Advent: November 29, 2009
These days it might seem like our political parties humiliate and degrade each other out of pure sport. While I can’t speak for all of them – some might actually be doing just that – most, I suspect, are driven by something much less sinister. In fact, it could even be considered “good” on some level. I give the politicians the benefit of the doubt. I think they believe in their own vision of what is best for our country and the world. I think they believe that if things would be done their way, if their philosophy governed the decisions, the economy would be better, health care would be fixed, we would be safe from terrorists, and the world would move toward peace.
However, when politicians really believe in their own worldview, they really believe that the best thing that could happen is to have their political party in power – because once in power, you can do so much good. But you have to be in power first, and so this becomes the end goal – getting elected. Now, you will do anything you have to in order to accomplish that goal. You will oppose everything the other side does, even if you don’t actually oppose it. You will demonize your opponent, even though you know they are as good and genuine as you…just with different beliefs. This is classic, it is common, it is not unique to politics, it is an ethic with a name: utliltarianism, or “the ends justify the means.”
It might seem a little odd at first to say that Christianity is based entirely on this ethic. Well, sort of. Instead of the endS justifying the means, we believe the end justifies the means: singular…end. We start with the end – the ultimate end, and work backwards from there. Advent is the beginning of the church year, the start of our whole faith story and it begins with the end. It begins with a text from Luke that talks about the coming of Christ again into the world, bringing about the end times.
So what’s so important about starting at the end? It all has to do with what we think the “end” is, and when it’s going to happen – or if it’s going to happen. There’s a word for this…”eschatology”, which simply means the study of end things.
We study and think about the end of the story of humanity because what we believe about that time directly impacts what we do in the present and what the content of our faith is. Even if we don’t think we believe anything about the end and so believe it actually has no impact on our actions and faith, we’re wrong.
We all believe something, even if it’s that there is no “end” at all, only infinity stretched out in front of this universe. Even if this is what we believe, a number of questions are still embedded in such a view. For example, does that infinity always include humans? is earth still around one billion years from now? do the living creatures bear any resemblance to us, their evolutionary ancestors? The answers to these questions directly affect what one does in the present, even if we’re not always conscious of it. Think response to global warming, relationship to non human creatures, perspective on what is taught in school. What we believe about the destiny of humankind really affects decisions and actions in the present.
So in Advent we stop and think a little bit about eschatology and what it means to us today. Advent is a season of waiting – it is a pre-beginning actually. We are waiting for the “advent” of something…the beginning of something. For us that new beginning is found in the birth of Jesus. But all along, ever since the earliest Christians, we have been waiting for something else: The Advent of “the end”. Another way people talk about this is we are waiting for the “second coming”, meaning Christ coming again to clean up the mess we have made and set things right.
Our biblical passages this morning are talking about that second kind of waiting. Each author is describing what the “end” will look like. Jeremiah and Luke paint a picture of what they are waiting for – what they are expecting at some point in the future. And why are they doing this? What compels people to think about a future time when things will completely change, or come to an end? Usually it’s because the present is so bad we know it can’t be all there is, forever. All through our scriptures, God promises a new world order – one that addresses the suffering we face. We call it the Realm of God, or the kingdom of God. This is a time when suffering will be non-existent and war, hatred and violence will be no more. And throughout our scriptures people have found comfort and hope in visions of the Realm of God.
At the same time, throughout our scriptures – and throughout human history – all too often people make the more immediate future the object of hope. We describe all kinds of hopes for what will happen soon, in our lifetime, if not in the next week. We hope the economy will turn around. We hope war will end. We hope our political party will be elected. We hope our loved ones will be healed or our grief will end. We hope for a child. And on and on.
Our writers challenge us to think beyond these short term hopes, because what they know is all short term hopes are limited and fall short of the ultimate hope of the coming of God’s realm. And if our lives are driven only by these short terms hopes, instead of the ultimate hope, our actions and faith will inevitably be distorted. Our choices will be affected by lesser goals, rather than the only goal that matters.
We’re not alone in this. The Israelite people made this mistake – hoping only for their own fortunes rather than God’s realm, and their actions led to their own downfall. The disciples did this, hoping for a king to rule over their people and their land and so trying to make Jesus into that king, rather than the very incarnation of God. We are in the same boat, so often looking to short term ends and expedient means, and so the prophets and the author of Luke speak to us as much as the people of their day. Yet each of these writers gives a different picture of “the end” and how that will come about. Our job is to measure those pictures against what Jesus said about the coming of the Realm of God, and then act accordingly.
By the time Jesus was born there were many, many different understandings of what the end times would look like – the one common thread was that virtually all Jews were waiting for the Messiah, who would usher in this end. Some believed this would happen in their lifetime; others believe it was a distant dream. Most, however, believed it would include a divine, wrath-filled judgment of their oppressors and it would be a bloody event.
When Jesus was born, some Jews believed he was the Messiah – that he came to judge the wicked and institute a violent battle against the oppressors that would leave him king of a united Israel. We all know now that was not the Messiah Jesus would be. Yet even after his death, many still saw Jesus this way – only now the bloody apocalyptic moment would be when Jesus comes back…the “2nd coming”. They thought Jesus was coming back soon – very, very soon – to finish the job he started.
Obviously by the time our gospels were written, 50 – 90 years after Jesus death, they were having to deal with a very uncomfortable delay. Jesus had not returned. Their pictures about the end times were once again proven inaccurate and so they rethought what Jesus’ life, death and resurrection meant generations later.
We can see that very rethinking in the gospel of Luke. We see in his writing a shift from the bloody apocalypse to that envisioned by Jesus. We see this shift within the gospel itself – a progression. Our passage retains some of the old ways of thinking, including some disturbing images of Jesus’ 2nd coming; then in the birth and life of Jesus Luke develops a new vision of the end times.
Luke lived after the destruction of the temple and the bloody war that accompanied it. This took place in 70 AD – 40 years after Jesus died. For Luke, this was the 2nd coming. When Jesus is making his prediction in our scripture passage today, Luke intends this as a prediction of a future event for Jesus, but a past event to Luke and his readers. Now, from Luke’s place in history, he believes there is to be an interim period of time of unknown length in which the church is to live as God’s people until Christ comes again; not in his lifetime, but at some indefinite, unspecified point in the future.
This shift from an imminent to indefinite and violent to peaceful eschatology affected Luke’s theology and ethics. An imminent eschatology brings extreme ethics. If the end is near and inevitable, the only thing left to do is to ready oneself to be on the right side of God’s judgment. An indefinite eschatology, on the other hand, supports an ethic that is engaged with the world. No longer expecting their or their children’s lives to be interrupted and the world as they know it brought to an end, the Christians had to figure out how to live in the meantime.
In the coming weeks we will see what Luke believed such a life should look like. For now, what’s important is that in Luke the bloody picture of an immediate end became a future possibility based not on popular messianic hopes, but rather on Jesus’ own understanding of end times: namely the full completion of God’s Realm here on earth. “The realm of God is near,” Jesus says. And then his life became a glimpse of that promised future, and it is that future that shaped Luke’s understanding of who the church needs to be in the present.
We too are left to figure out what to do in the meantime. And what we believe about the “end” – the goal of human history – affects what the “meantime” ethic should be. If it’s a violent, bloody judgment of those left behind after the true Christians are taken up into heaven, we will live as an exclusive club requiring assent to specific creeds and moralistic codes for membership…which is the only way to salvation. On the other hand, if it’s the end of this era and the beginning of a new world order found not through violence but through the creative actions of human kind living as best they can like the realm of God now, we will be a community that embraces the principles of Jesus’ life: nonviolence, inclusion, healing and compassion.
In a culture where the ends justifies the mean, we need to be clear about what the “end” is that we Christians seek so our means are always and only justified by the Realm of God. Sometimes this will coincide with shorter term goals, but sometimes it won’t. In fact at times the ultimate end might indicate actions in the present that will work directly against some of our dearly held short term desires. We need to challenge the notion that the future is a set event, like a movie already written with the dramatic ending. Instead, there is something of a blue print found in Jesus’ life and his vision of God’s realm. But he leaves it to us to complete what he has started.
Like Luke and Jeremiah, we are waiting. And in the meantime we have decisions to make about what it means to be the church – the people of God. We, like the early Church, must sustain the hope of God’s realm through our actions, even though it seems at times that such a realm is in the distant future. If we give up on that, accepting an ethic that serves a lesser, more expedient “end”, we deny God’s promise and destroy both the present and the future hope.
There are a lot of worthy goals, but none ever supersedes the Realm of God. When we speak about the coming of God’s reign, we are concerned about the longest terms interests of the plant or species, or really universe. Such a view precludes a utilitarian ethic where we use people as pawns or violence as a tool in order to accomplish a short term goal. We seem to abandon this perspective all too easily when we are afraid or even just angry. But we know how destructive short term goals can be. The short term goal becomes that which justifies all manner of evil.
This season, as we join the prophets and the gospel writers in asking the question of what we should do while we wait for the Realm of God, let’s ask ourselves what we are working toward and how that affects our ethics and decisions. Is it success, security, invulnerability, power, happiness? What are we willing to do for our short term goals and how does that square with what life looks like in the Realm of God; in the end…the only one that matters. Amen.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Pure Thanksgiving
Psalm 126; 1 Timothy 2:1-8; Matthew 6:25-34
Pledge Sunday: November 22, 2009
I kept a journal of my time in Vietnam when I went to pick up Lydia. Toward the end of our stay I was wondering whether we would be home in time for Thanksgiving. As I was writing about that, I engaged in what I thought was humor. Mostly I was trying to amuse myself, but I thought others who knew me and were reading the blog would chuckle a little. I was, by the way, pretty much wrong about that.
“Who knows,” I wrote, “we may be spending Thanksgiving in Vietnam. A bummer to be sure, but we will find some tofurkey somewhere. Even if we’re not home we’ll tell Kim all about this wonderful American celebration …when we gather as family and friends and remember all we are grateful for, celebrating a historic event wrapped in a pall of conquest and slaughter that we rarely mention in the midst of "pass the gravy".”
Now because it apparently was not obvious, here’s what I thought was funny – besides the notion of talking to a 3 ½ month old about conquest and slaughter. I found some dark humor in the irony of it all. The irony is that what I say is of course true, and some day Lydia will have to deal with such complex truths about her adoptive country. Yet even as I wrote, looking at her I gave thanks for the most amazing gift I have ever received. There was no way for me not to be only thankful and unaware at that moment of all that was wrong in the world. I was completely wrapped up in a time of pure thanksgiving. It all struck me as funny – that I could be both purely thankful and still write about Lydia having to deal with the complexities of her first American holiday. Okay, I admit I have a very strange – or maybe just bad – sense of humor.
We’re all too aware of the complexities of how this holiday was born, or more accurately what the larger context was of that famous meal recounted in thousands of children’s plays each year. The pilgrims were sitting around the table with their new found friends who had arrived in this new world long ago – all the while storms were brewing and erupting with violence between these two peoples that would claim a staggering number of lives on both sides, and set a course for the forced displacement of the indigenous people, the effects of which we still see today. This was violence instigated by the very thing the people were grateful for – their having come to this new place. I don’t think we can escape the fact that that makes celebrating thanksgiving complicated.
And it doesn’t stop there. It has always made me uneasy to say a prayer praising God for the goodness we are about to receive right before our family thanksgiving meal, something I have in recent years declined to do. We will have way more than we can possibly eat and we will eat way more than we should. All the while, so many tables around the world and right here in Grinnell are empty. In such prayer, exactly what are we saying we’re thankful for? Are we thanking God that we’re lucky enough to have been born into a family and country of abundance, and for not making us like those who are living hungry?
And the complexities just keep on coming when we turn to our texts. They seem to be about giving thanks in exactly the way most of us do on this holiday – celebrating God’s abundance which provides practical things – like food and clothing as we see in Matthew, and the big gift of Jesus Christ as we see in Timothy.
But when we stop and think about these passages a bit more critically, we are faced with even more problems with what it means for us to be thankful. In Matthew Jesus tells the people not to worry or ask about what they eat and what they will drink. We read this and it’s pretty easy to not worry about such things, because we don’t really have to worry about them ever. But consider those to whom these passages were originally addressed. They were basically poor people – being sucked dry by the king, who, by the way, is exactly the person they should be giving thanks to God for – according to the author of Timothy.
These texts must have sounded so different to those living under persecution and oppression at that time than to us living in a free country about to have our Harvest Dinner. We may not always agree with our elected officials, but we can give thanks for them and for the fact that they are accountable to the people and for the freedom to vote and affect our own government. That was so not the case for the people living when these passages were written. And how can we happily read this text from Matthew knowing it must have been a difficult thing for that early audience to hear and believe given their circumstances. Shouldn’t we feel a little bit guilty about celebrating Thanksgiving with abandon? And if so, doesn’t that ruin Thanksgiving completely?
Most of us have an instinct to ignore these complexities on Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving, we argue, is a time to focus on – well – giving thanks. And spiritually speaking, the argument continues, it is essential that we set aside time to think about all that we are grateful for and to raise our hands toward the heavens and praise God, the source of it all. If we always made sure we included time to talk about and think about all of these complexities – for which we are absolutely not grateful – not only would it affect our enjoyment of the day, it would affect our spirits as well. And though I have resisted it in the past, after our readings today, I think this is a good instinct. I think it is biblical. It’s an idea right out of the Psalms.
If we didn’t know better, we would think this collection of hymns and poems was put together by a schizophrenic people; one minute they’re yelling at God for abandoning them, in the next they’re asking God to smite their enemies, and then they sing praises to God more eloquent and more extravagant than any we can imagine in a church today.
“Our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy!” our Psalmist recounts. Presumably something good had happened to the nation of Israel and they were giving thanks to God- the one who made it happen. Compare that to the Psalm right before ours: “Those who turn aside to their own crooked ways the Lord will lead away with evildoers.” Not exactly something to praise God for. In yet another Psalm we get, “O God of vengeance…how long shall the wicked exult?” And still another; “O God, why do you cast me off? Why do you hide your face from me? I suffer your terrors; I am desperate. Your wrath has swept over me; your dread assaults destroy me.” God is absent and the Psalmist makes no attempt to resolve that. Yet the very next Psalm beings, “I will sing of your steadfast love, O Yahweh, forever; with my mouth I will proclaim your faithfulness to all generations.”
These divergent psalms, when read together, are almost painful. It mirrors for me the painful tension I feel on thanksgiving. How is this possible? How can both be honest? “How long must I wait, how long must I suffer?” “My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God.” “O God, why do you cast us off forever?” “Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth. Say “how awesome are your deeds!” I truly could go on and on.
Let’s be honest: There’s no such thing as “pure” thanksgiving. It’s always a mixed bag. But what we see in the Psalms is there are times to give God our pure thanks for all God has done in creation. Just as there are times to give God our pure laments for all that has gone awry and in our moments of greatest doubts about God’s presence. If we trust the Psalms we see that one does not diminish the other. And both are necessary for our spiritual lives – for our relationship with God.
Our lives should not be a muddled mess of half laments that never move us to action and halfhearted thanksgivings that never truly connect us to all that God makes possible in creation. There is much to truly lament, and when we do we weep with God…we are connected to God who yearns for suffering to end, and so then do we. But there is so much to truly give thanks for, and when we do – fully, loudly, with songs and dance and beauty and celebration – well we know how good God is, how amazing creation is and we feel the power of that – the hope in that, which compels us to make those blessings real for all people for all time.
We act out of our pain when we have compassion for the suffering around us, but just as often act out of joy and thanksgiving. We know this. Think about what we will do later when we dedicate the pledges. We give to the church because were immensely grateful to God for all we have. And we’re grateful that we can share what we have with others, which becomes a witness to the fact that God does indeed provide for all when all are generous with what they have been given. This is a joyful time – we are giving out of our joy and thanksgiving.
Just like the Psalmists, Matthew insists on fully experiencing the joys of life and the suffering of others. In this passage, Jesus paints this beautiful picture of the lilies and the birds and all that God has given…maybe for a moment the people who legitimately worried every day about food and water were able to bask in that picture. Maybe they had a moment of pure thanksgiving – believing that God will provide when things are set right in the world. The birds and lilies are a sign of what is possible – possible only because God makes it so.
But this does not minimize the reality of suffering all around Jesus. Think about the whole gospel. This passage is not all Jesus had to say to people. He also insists on pure lament at times – “the poor will always be with you,” he says with deep sorrow. “God you have forsaken me,” he yells. “We have traded God’s house for a den of thieves,” he says in anger. But in this passage, in this moment he celebrates the goodness and abundance of God without qualification or equivocation. Don’t worry about tomorrow, he says, because tomorrow will bring back to us all that we do worry about. But today – this day – right now, consider the lilies of the fields and the birds of the air and how much God cares for you…how much God loves you. Rejoice in that!
This year, I’m doing thanksgiving…really doing it. No reminding my family of why it’s too hard for me to pray before the meal of extravagance. No thinking about the complexities that dampen my joy. Instead I will spend a day lavishing in the things I am most grateful for – my friends and family and the fact that we can and do gather in one place. Those are incredible gifts from God. Just as those first moments with my new daughter were filled with untempered joy, so can these moments with the people I hold most dear.
Today we will bring forward our pledges and boldly proclaim our abundance. We know that the reality is far more complicated, but for now let’s celebrate God who gives us all enough – all of humanity – if we joyfully share what we have. In this moment, with everything we have, we can look around and say “Wow! Look at all we are blessed with”. And then we can raise our voices “Praise GOD from whom ALL blessings flow”. Tomorrow will bring enough worries – even appropriate ones. Tomorrow or next week or whenever, we will lift our cries of lament. But not today. Today is our Psalm of thanksgiving!!! Pure thanksgiving!!! Amen.
Pledge Sunday: November 22, 2009
I kept a journal of my time in Vietnam when I went to pick up Lydia. Toward the end of our stay I was wondering whether we would be home in time for Thanksgiving. As I was writing about that, I engaged in what I thought was humor. Mostly I was trying to amuse myself, but I thought others who knew me and were reading the blog would chuckle a little. I was, by the way, pretty much wrong about that.
“Who knows,” I wrote, “we may be spending Thanksgiving in Vietnam. A bummer to be sure, but we will find some tofurkey somewhere. Even if we’re not home we’ll tell Kim all about this wonderful American celebration …when we gather as family and friends and remember all we are grateful for, celebrating a historic event wrapped in a pall of conquest and slaughter that we rarely mention in the midst of "pass the gravy".”
Now because it apparently was not obvious, here’s what I thought was funny – besides the notion of talking to a 3 ½ month old about conquest and slaughter. I found some dark humor in the irony of it all. The irony is that what I say is of course true, and some day Lydia will have to deal with such complex truths about her adoptive country. Yet even as I wrote, looking at her I gave thanks for the most amazing gift I have ever received. There was no way for me not to be only thankful and unaware at that moment of all that was wrong in the world. I was completely wrapped up in a time of pure thanksgiving. It all struck me as funny – that I could be both purely thankful and still write about Lydia having to deal with the complexities of her first American holiday. Okay, I admit I have a very strange – or maybe just bad – sense of humor.
We’re all too aware of the complexities of how this holiday was born, or more accurately what the larger context was of that famous meal recounted in thousands of children’s plays each year. The pilgrims were sitting around the table with their new found friends who had arrived in this new world long ago – all the while storms were brewing and erupting with violence between these two peoples that would claim a staggering number of lives on both sides, and set a course for the forced displacement of the indigenous people, the effects of which we still see today. This was violence instigated by the very thing the people were grateful for – their having come to this new place. I don’t think we can escape the fact that that makes celebrating thanksgiving complicated.
And it doesn’t stop there. It has always made me uneasy to say a prayer praising God for the goodness we are about to receive right before our family thanksgiving meal, something I have in recent years declined to do. We will have way more than we can possibly eat and we will eat way more than we should. All the while, so many tables around the world and right here in Grinnell are empty. In such prayer, exactly what are we saying we’re thankful for? Are we thanking God that we’re lucky enough to have been born into a family and country of abundance, and for not making us like those who are living hungry?
And the complexities just keep on coming when we turn to our texts. They seem to be about giving thanks in exactly the way most of us do on this holiday – celebrating God’s abundance which provides practical things – like food and clothing as we see in Matthew, and the big gift of Jesus Christ as we see in Timothy.
But when we stop and think about these passages a bit more critically, we are faced with even more problems with what it means for us to be thankful. In Matthew Jesus tells the people not to worry or ask about what they eat and what they will drink. We read this and it’s pretty easy to not worry about such things, because we don’t really have to worry about them ever. But consider those to whom these passages were originally addressed. They were basically poor people – being sucked dry by the king, who, by the way, is exactly the person they should be giving thanks to God for – according to the author of Timothy.
These texts must have sounded so different to those living under persecution and oppression at that time than to us living in a free country about to have our Harvest Dinner. We may not always agree with our elected officials, but we can give thanks for them and for the fact that they are accountable to the people and for the freedom to vote and affect our own government. That was so not the case for the people living when these passages were written. And how can we happily read this text from Matthew knowing it must have been a difficult thing for that early audience to hear and believe given their circumstances. Shouldn’t we feel a little bit guilty about celebrating Thanksgiving with abandon? And if so, doesn’t that ruin Thanksgiving completely?
Most of us have an instinct to ignore these complexities on Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving, we argue, is a time to focus on – well – giving thanks. And spiritually speaking, the argument continues, it is essential that we set aside time to think about all that we are grateful for and to raise our hands toward the heavens and praise God, the source of it all. If we always made sure we included time to talk about and think about all of these complexities – for which we are absolutely not grateful – not only would it affect our enjoyment of the day, it would affect our spirits as well. And though I have resisted it in the past, after our readings today, I think this is a good instinct. I think it is biblical. It’s an idea right out of the Psalms.
If we didn’t know better, we would think this collection of hymns and poems was put together by a schizophrenic people; one minute they’re yelling at God for abandoning them, in the next they’re asking God to smite their enemies, and then they sing praises to God more eloquent and more extravagant than any we can imagine in a church today.
“Our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy!” our Psalmist recounts. Presumably something good had happened to the nation of Israel and they were giving thanks to God- the one who made it happen. Compare that to the Psalm right before ours: “Those who turn aside to their own crooked ways the Lord will lead away with evildoers.” Not exactly something to praise God for. In yet another Psalm we get, “O God of vengeance…how long shall the wicked exult?” And still another; “O God, why do you cast me off? Why do you hide your face from me? I suffer your terrors; I am desperate. Your wrath has swept over me; your dread assaults destroy me.” God is absent and the Psalmist makes no attempt to resolve that. Yet the very next Psalm beings, “I will sing of your steadfast love, O Yahweh, forever; with my mouth I will proclaim your faithfulness to all generations.”
These divergent psalms, when read together, are almost painful. It mirrors for me the painful tension I feel on thanksgiving. How is this possible? How can both be honest? “How long must I wait, how long must I suffer?” “My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God.” “O God, why do you cast us off forever?” “Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth. Say “how awesome are your deeds!” I truly could go on and on.
Let’s be honest: There’s no such thing as “pure” thanksgiving. It’s always a mixed bag. But what we see in the Psalms is there are times to give God our pure thanks for all God has done in creation. Just as there are times to give God our pure laments for all that has gone awry and in our moments of greatest doubts about God’s presence. If we trust the Psalms we see that one does not diminish the other. And both are necessary for our spiritual lives – for our relationship with God.
Our lives should not be a muddled mess of half laments that never move us to action and halfhearted thanksgivings that never truly connect us to all that God makes possible in creation. There is much to truly lament, and when we do we weep with God…we are connected to God who yearns for suffering to end, and so then do we. But there is so much to truly give thanks for, and when we do – fully, loudly, with songs and dance and beauty and celebration – well we know how good God is, how amazing creation is and we feel the power of that – the hope in that, which compels us to make those blessings real for all people for all time.
We act out of our pain when we have compassion for the suffering around us, but just as often act out of joy and thanksgiving. We know this. Think about what we will do later when we dedicate the pledges. We give to the church because were immensely grateful to God for all we have. And we’re grateful that we can share what we have with others, which becomes a witness to the fact that God does indeed provide for all when all are generous with what they have been given. This is a joyful time – we are giving out of our joy and thanksgiving.
Just like the Psalmists, Matthew insists on fully experiencing the joys of life and the suffering of others. In this passage, Jesus paints this beautiful picture of the lilies and the birds and all that God has given…maybe for a moment the people who legitimately worried every day about food and water were able to bask in that picture. Maybe they had a moment of pure thanksgiving – believing that God will provide when things are set right in the world. The birds and lilies are a sign of what is possible – possible only because God makes it so.
But this does not minimize the reality of suffering all around Jesus. Think about the whole gospel. This passage is not all Jesus had to say to people. He also insists on pure lament at times – “the poor will always be with you,” he says with deep sorrow. “God you have forsaken me,” he yells. “We have traded God’s house for a den of thieves,” he says in anger. But in this passage, in this moment he celebrates the goodness and abundance of God without qualification or equivocation. Don’t worry about tomorrow, he says, because tomorrow will bring back to us all that we do worry about. But today – this day – right now, consider the lilies of the fields and the birds of the air and how much God cares for you…how much God loves you. Rejoice in that!
This year, I’m doing thanksgiving…really doing it. No reminding my family of why it’s too hard for me to pray before the meal of extravagance. No thinking about the complexities that dampen my joy. Instead I will spend a day lavishing in the things I am most grateful for – my friends and family and the fact that we can and do gather in one place. Those are incredible gifts from God. Just as those first moments with my new daughter were filled with untempered joy, so can these moments with the people I hold most dear.
Today we will bring forward our pledges and boldly proclaim our abundance. We know that the reality is far more complicated, but for now let’s celebrate God who gives us all enough – all of humanity – if we joyfully share what we have. In this moment, with everything we have, we can look around and say “Wow! Look at all we are blessed with”. And then we can raise our voices “Praise GOD from whom ALL blessings flow”. Tomorrow will bring enough worries – even appropriate ones. Tomorrow or next week or whenever, we will lift our cries of lament. But not today. Today is our Psalm of thanksgiving!!! Pure thanksgiving!!! Amen.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Stir One Another
1 Samuel 1:4-20 ; Hebrews 10:19-25
November 15, 2009
At first glance, this reading from the book of Samuel appears to be a very personal, spiritual story about Hannah and her quest for a son. And it makes sense that we would read it that way. We read it that way because we are used to spiritual narratives being personal, even private, in nature. We read it that way because there is always a natural tendency to empathize with the protagonist in any story. But most importantly, we read it that way because we are not the nation of Israel living in exile in Babylon in 6th century BCE.
If we are to “get” this passage, we have to step back from our way of reading it and put ourselves in the shoes of those who wrote it. First, let’s begin with a quick review of the larger story in which this narrative sits. The story of 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings is the story of four main characters: Samuel, Saul, David and Solomon. These four men, one prophet and three kings, occupy the majority of these books, even though they occupy a short period of time in history relative to all the other kings mentioned in these books of the bible. Obviously, the point is these are the guys who defined the nation of Israel. They built it and ruled it, giving the people an identity that still had a hold on those in exile 400 years later – which is amazing because not only are these characters long gone at that point, the Jewish people had lost their status as a nation. They had no land, no king, nothing…except their identity that was formed and shaped during the time of Samuel, Saul, David and Solomon.
Now the stories of the kings were written and read long before the fall of Jerusalem and displacement of the Jews. However, they were heavily edited into their final form during the exilic period. Which makes sense when you think about it. The experience of exile was so different from the experiences of those who first chronicled the history of the Israelite kings – the ones who originally wrote these stories down. They didn’t have to make sense of the painful experience of exile. They didn’t have to wonder why God would allow such a horrible event. Conversely, those in exile wondered just that, and so they went back to their history and recreated the stories in a way that helped them understand who their God was and how that God acted in relationship to the people throughout the generations. In other words, these “finishers” of the story made significant changes to the original in order to make sense of their current predicament.
Because of this we are to read the story of Hanna through the eyes of those living in exile so many years after Hannah lived. Her seemingly private tale is actually to be read as the story of the Hebrew people, of the nation of Israel, of God’s chosen people. Her barrenness is the barrenness of exile. Her embryo is the promise of God to the people in exile, and Samuel becomes the symbol of the future hope of Israel.
One thing we know about the experience of these editors of our text is that it’s hard to understand God in the midst of exile. We understand because exile is not an experience limited to the Jews in 586 BCE. Exile is any experience of feeling disconnected from God. It’s those times when we might even feel abandoned by God. And sometimes it almost feels as if God is responsible for the situation because God chooses absence over presence. These are the “why?” moments. “Why would God allow this to happen? Why, if God loves us and forgives us would God not swoop in and stop the suffering? Why would God create a world where such experiences of exile are possible?” In these moments, these questions hang heavy in the air, and in order to lighten the load, we struggle to answer them as best we can.
The Jews in exile who edited the stories of the great prophets and kings of Israel reveal their answers through stories like Hannah’s. In her barrenness they give voice to what they truly feel – they refuse to deny their own painful experience. Remember, Hannah is not just barren, she is barren because God closed her womb. They blame God for their own experiences of barrenness – for the lack of hope and serious doubt in God’s promises to them. It’s God’s fault, they say, that we are weeping by the rivers of Babylon. For them, God had closed the womb of promise.
But of course, the story does not stop there. Even in their weeping, they go on to tell the rest of the story. They know God is not finished; the relationship is not forever severed. They know it, and they find an expression of that in Hannah. We read that because she is barren she weeps, she can’t eat, she suffers ridicule and cruelty; yet she gets up and goes to the temple. She gets up. As hard as that must have been, believing it was God who closed her womb, she gets up and goes straight to God to pray.
This is not an unusual move for biblical characters who suffer and feel like it’s God’s fault. Many people in our scdriptures decide from their place of suffering that it’s time for a little “chat” with God. Some demand answers, some pray for relief, some get angry, some bargain with God. Hannah, Sarah, Jacob, Job the prophets, Paul, the disciples, even Jesus – remember my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
And time after time, God is there to listen, to explain, sometimes to chastise and sometimes, amazingly, God changes God’s mind because of these “chats” - these prayers. Hannah’s vow was convincing to God – her vow to bring her child back to the temple and dedicate his life to God. While I recognize I could never know what God would do, I can’t help but wonder what the response would have been if Hannah had begged for a son in order to alleviate her own suffering. Giving Samuel to the church was not going to solve her problems. She didn’t know if she would have other kids. One Samuel is gone the ridicule might continue and her security in the household will remain compromised. Nothing in her life would change – yet she prays for a son in order to give him to God admitting that God’s plans were far more important than hers.
In her actions – in her vow to God – the Israelites in exile find their instructions. They need to change their prayers from requests that sound more like complaining to prayers where they offer their lives to God, knowing, or rather somehow believing God would fulfill God’s promises if given a chance. And in Hannah’s case God does – Hannah becomes pregnant not just with a son for her, but with Samuel – the future of Israel. Samuel is the one who would eventually raise up David as a king who unites the people and makes of them a great nation. In Samuel was proof that God fulfills promises. Or, maybe another way to understand it, is that the people suffering in exile told the story of Samuel in order to defiantly proclaim from the depths of a time of barrenness their complete trust in God and their hope for the future.
Likewise, the author of Hebrews was writing from an experience of exile, only this time it was the Jews and Christians in the years following the destruction of the temple in 70 AD. It was their Babylon time. And this author calls the people to the same kind of hope that their ancestors found in the stories of Samuel.
And where would the Christians find that hope? Where was their Samuel? It was the church – the gathered body. For the author of Hebrews, hope was not in one person, but in the gathering. He says “meet together”; don’t neglect this important – actually necessary – step lest you remain in the world of barrenness, of separation from God.
Polls show there is a growing number of people today who describe themselves as “spiritual, but not religious.” Often that grows out of legitimate, tragic experiences of the religious institutions hurting people in some way. Sometimes it’s because of the legitimate, tragic truth that religious institutions too often show themselves to be something other than God’s realm and so turn people off who believe it should be better than that. But I think there are also a lot of people who are spiritual but not religious because, quite frankly, it is difficult to be religious. As one author says, “The inconvenient thing about religion is it asks you to do stuff; like worship with other people, love other people, and do good things for other people. And to do it all regardless of how you feel about any of it.” Without religion, one can become focused on their own personal growth, but have no faith that the gathered body does have the ability to offer hope not just for individuals, but for humanity.
The author of Hebrews wasn’t saying our hope is found in a personal salvation through individual belief in God or Jesus. Our author would be baffled by the idea that someone could be spiritual but not religious. He writes, “Meet together, stir one another to love and good works.” I love this idea of “stirring” one another to love and good works. For me it conjures up images of our hearts being stirred like a stew – waking them up, moving them to compassion through each other’s experiences and convictions.
We too live in exile. I truly believe this, although many would argue otherwise. But here we are, living as a nation, united just as the nation of Israel was united before the Babylonians changed all that. And I think the writing is on the wall – not in the 2012, end-of-the-world-hollywood-apocalypse sense, but in the “we’ve lost our way” sense. We are at war; we use our economic might and power to get others to do what we want; and the gap between the rich and the poor actually does approach the cataclysmic. We can’t count on God to be on our side – that isn’t how it works. We are given the freedom to move away from God, and suffer the consequences. We are the creators of our own barrenness and separation…exile.
Even the church is in exile at times. There are times that we lose our center, looking to someone or something other than God to guide us in what we do. I see it when churches look to be “trendy” to attract members, making church growth the God and contemporary culture the means of salvation. I see it when individual salvation becomes the mark of success for pastors and congregations – “winning people for Christ”, it is called, in a gross misuse of that phrase of Paul’s.
I read an article that was comparing some of our current churches to the early church. The author pointed out that the many challenges of the early church never, ever included a lack of growth. Instead, they made a point of staying distinct from contemporary culture, of continuing the Hebrew understanding of being set apart as a people by and for God.
The task the early church set for itself was not to resemble the surrounding culture and be popular with ordinary folks; the task was to radically challenge and change the surrounding culture. “The struggle for the church,” she writes, “has always been how to be faithful to God.”
The good news here at First Pres is that we do gather – we come together every week and many other times, and we do stir one another to love and good works. It is our defiant answer to exile, our proclamation of faith, our confession of hope in a sometimes hopeless world.
I want to give you just one example of this is something we have recently started. Our church has made two micro loans to people in the Grinnell community. In each case, one event – like losing a job – caused them to get behind a little bit. These loans make it possible for them to get caught up and then have reasonable monthly payments that won’t over burden them. And here’s the thing about our loans: they are interest free, they are given freely with ultimately no expectation of repayment – as the bible directs us. And they are made with compassion as the basis, allowing for renegotiating terms of repayment if that ever becomes necessary. Not exactly like the culture around us, is it?
And it all started with one person who was moved by the suffering of another human being. And that one person came to his church – his gathering place, and started stirring. He stirred the session with an idea, and it got the juices flowing and creative solutions began to emerge. Then the session stirred the congregation, and you let your hearts be stirred and generously supported the program. And it has made a real difference. I’ve had the blessing of seeing it first hand in these two situations.
In addition now we, along with others, are stirring our community to love and good works. A number of organizations in Grinnell are working together to try and establish a microfinancing program for the whole community that could serve far more people than we can alone. And finally, you can’t imagine how many new, creative ideas have begun to grow out of this.
What could have been a bleak situation, a situation where someone asked “Why does God let this person suffer so unfairly?” turned into an opportunity for hope to be born; the gathered body of Christ is responding in a way that would be difficult for any of us individually, and so far is not how the contemporary culture responds. And in this way, we are proclaiming that God’s promises still live in us – in our church. No matter how barren things seem, there is always something brewing in our hearts. They just need to be stirred up a bit by one another so the ideas become actions – actions of love and good works. So, let’s keep stirring one another. Amen.
November 15, 2009
At first glance, this reading from the book of Samuel appears to be a very personal, spiritual story about Hannah and her quest for a son. And it makes sense that we would read it that way. We read it that way because we are used to spiritual narratives being personal, even private, in nature. We read it that way because there is always a natural tendency to empathize with the protagonist in any story. But most importantly, we read it that way because we are not the nation of Israel living in exile in Babylon in 6th century BCE.
If we are to “get” this passage, we have to step back from our way of reading it and put ourselves in the shoes of those who wrote it. First, let’s begin with a quick review of the larger story in which this narrative sits. The story of 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings is the story of four main characters: Samuel, Saul, David and Solomon. These four men, one prophet and three kings, occupy the majority of these books, even though they occupy a short period of time in history relative to all the other kings mentioned in these books of the bible. Obviously, the point is these are the guys who defined the nation of Israel. They built it and ruled it, giving the people an identity that still had a hold on those in exile 400 years later – which is amazing because not only are these characters long gone at that point, the Jewish people had lost their status as a nation. They had no land, no king, nothing…except their identity that was formed and shaped during the time of Samuel, Saul, David and Solomon.
Now the stories of the kings were written and read long before the fall of Jerusalem and displacement of the Jews. However, they were heavily edited into their final form during the exilic period. Which makes sense when you think about it. The experience of exile was so different from the experiences of those who first chronicled the history of the Israelite kings – the ones who originally wrote these stories down. They didn’t have to make sense of the painful experience of exile. They didn’t have to wonder why God would allow such a horrible event. Conversely, those in exile wondered just that, and so they went back to their history and recreated the stories in a way that helped them understand who their God was and how that God acted in relationship to the people throughout the generations. In other words, these “finishers” of the story made significant changes to the original in order to make sense of their current predicament.
Because of this we are to read the story of Hanna through the eyes of those living in exile so many years after Hannah lived. Her seemingly private tale is actually to be read as the story of the Hebrew people, of the nation of Israel, of God’s chosen people. Her barrenness is the barrenness of exile. Her embryo is the promise of God to the people in exile, and Samuel becomes the symbol of the future hope of Israel.
One thing we know about the experience of these editors of our text is that it’s hard to understand God in the midst of exile. We understand because exile is not an experience limited to the Jews in 586 BCE. Exile is any experience of feeling disconnected from God. It’s those times when we might even feel abandoned by God. And sometimes it almost feels as if God is responsible for the situation because God chooses absence over presence. These are the “why?” moments. “Why would God allow this to happen? Why, if God loves us and forgives us would God not swoop in and stop the suffering? Why would God create a world where such experiences of exile are possible?” In these moments, these questions hang heavy in the air, and in order to lighten the load, we struggle to answer them as best we can.
The Jews in exile who edited the stories of the great prophets and kings of Israel reveal their answers through stories like Hannah’s. In her barrenness they give voice to what they truly feel – they refuse to deny their own painful experience. Remember, Hannah is not just barren, she is barren because God closed her womb. They blame God for their own experiences of barrenness – for the lack of hope and serious doubt in God’s promises to them. It’s God’s fault, they say, that we are weeping by the rivers of Babylon. For them, God had closed the womb of promise.
But of course, the story does not stop there. Even in their weeping, they go on to tell the rest of the story. They know God is not finished; the relationship is not forever severed. They know it, and they find an expression of that in Hannah. We read that because she is barren she weeps, she can’t eat, she suffers ridicule and cruelty; yet she gets up and goes to the temple. She gets up. As hard as that must have been, believing it was God who closed her womb, she gets up and goes straight to God to pray.
This is not an unusual move for biblical characters who suffer and feel like it’s God’s fault. Many people in our scdriptures decide from their place of suffering that it’s time for a little “chat” with God. Some demand answers, some pray for relief, some get angry, some bargain with God. Hannah, Sarah, Jacob, Job the prophets, Paul, the disciples, even Jesus – remember my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
And time after time, God is there to listen, to explain, sometimes to chastise and sometimes, amazingly, God changes God’s mind because of these “chats” - these prayers. Hannah’s vow was convincing to God – her vow to bring her child back to the temple and dedicate his life to God. While I recognize I could never know what God would do, I can’t help but wonder what the response would have been if Hannah had begged for a son in order to alleviate her own suffering. Giving Samuel to the church was not going to solve her problems. She didn’t know if she would have other kids. One Samuel is gone the ridicule might continue and her security in the household will remain compromised. Nothing in her life would change – yet she prays for a son in order to give him to God admitting that God’s plans were far more important than hers.
In her actions – in her vow to God – the Israelites in exile find their instructions. They need to change their prayers from requests that sound more like complaining to prayers where they offer their lives to God, knowing, or rather somehow believing God would fulfill God’s promises if given a chance. And in Hannah’s case God does – Hannah becomes pregnant not just with a son for her, but with Samuel – the future of Israel. Samuel is the one who would eventually raise up David as a king who unites the people and makes of them a great nation. In Samuel was proof that God fulfills promises. Or, maybe another way to understand it, is that the people suffering in exile told the story of Samuel in order to defiantly proclaim from the depths of a time of barrenness their complete trust in God and their hope for the future.
Likewise, the author of Hebrews was writing from an experience of exile, only this time it was the Jews and Christians in the years following the destruction of the temple in 70 AD. It was their Babylon time. And this author calls the people to the same kind of hope that their ancestors found in the stories of Samuel.
And where would the Christians find that hope? Where was their Samuel? It was the church – the gathered body. For the author of Hebrews, hope was not in one person, but in the gathering. He says “meet together”; don’t neglect this important – actually necessary – step lest you remain in the world of barrenness, of separation from God.
Polls show there is a growing number of people today who describe themselves as “spiritual, but not religious.” Often that grows out of legitimate, tragic experiences of the religious institutions hurting people in some way. Sometimes it’s because of the legitimate, tragic truth that religious institutions too often show themselves to be something other than God’s realm and so turn people off who believe it should be better than that. But I think there are also a lot of people who are spiritual but not religious because, quite frankly, it is difficult to be religious. As one author says, “The inconvenient thing about religion is it asks you to do stuff; like worship with other people, love other people, and do good things for other people. And to do it all regardless of how you feel about any of it.” Without religion, one can become focused on their own personal growth, but have no faith that the gathered body does have the ability to offer hope not just for individuals, but for humanity.
The author of Hebrews wasn’t saying our hope is found in a personal salvation through individual belief in God or Jesus. Our author would be baffled by the idea that someone could be spiritual but not religious. He writes, “Meet together, stir one another to love and good works.” I love this idea of “stirring” one another to love and good works. For me it conjures up images of our hearts being stirred like a stew – waking them up, moving them to compassion through each other’s experiences and convictions.
We too live in exile. I truly believe this, although many would argue otherwise. But here we are, living as a nation, united just as the nation of Israel was united before the Babylonians changed all that. And I think the writing is on the wall – not in the 2012, end-of-the-world-hollywood-apocalypse sense, but in the “we’ve lost our way” sense. We are at war; we use our economic might and power to get others to do what we want; and the gap between the rich and the poor actually does approach the cataclysmic. We can’t count on God to be on our side – that isn’t how it works. We are given the freedom to move away from God, and suffer the consequences. We are the creators of our own barrenness and separation…exile.
Even the church is in exile at times. There are times that we lose our center, looking to someone or something other than God to guide us in what we do. I see it when churches look to be “trendy” to attract members, making church growth the God and contemporary culture the means of salvation. I see it when individual salvation becomes the mark of success for pastors and congregations – “winning people for Christ”, it is called, in a gross misuse of that phrase of Paul’s.
I read an article that was comparing some of our current churches to the early church. The author pointed out that the many challenges of the early church never, ever included a lack of growth. Instead, they made a point of staying distinct from contemporary culture, of continuing the Hebrew understanding of being set apart as a people by and for God.
The task the early church set for itself was not to resemble the surrounding culture and be popular with ordinary folks; the task was to radically challenge and change the surrounding culture. “The struggle for the church,” she writes, “has always been how to be faithful to God.”
The good news here at First Pres is that we do gather – we come together every week and many other times, and we do stir one another to love and good works. It is our defiant answer to exile, our proclamation of faith, our confession of hope in a sometimes hopeless world.
I want to give you just one example of this is something we have recently started. Our church has made two micro loans to people in the Grinnell community. In each case, one event – like losing a job – caused them to get behind a little bit. These loans make it possible for them to get caught up and then have reasonable monthly payments that won’t over burden them. And here’s the thing about our loans: they are interest free, they are given freely with ultimately no expectation of repayment – as the bible directs us. And they are made with compassion as the basis, allowing for renegotiating terms of repayment if that ever becomes necessary. Not exactly like the culture around us, is it?
And it all started with one person who was moved by the suffering of another human being. And that one person came to his church – his gathering place, and started stirring. He stirred the session with an idea, and it got the juices flowing and creative solutions began to emerge. Then the session stirred the congregation, and you let your hearts be stirred and generously supported the program. And it has made a real difference. I’ve had the blessing of seeing it first hand in these two situations.
In addition now we, along with others, are stirring our community to love and good works. A number of organizations in Grinnell are working together to try and establish a microfinancing program for the whole community that could serve far more people than we can alone. And finally, you can’t imagine how many new, creative ideas have begun to grow out of this.
What could have been a bleak situation, a situation where someone asked “Why does God let this person suffer so unfairly?” turned into an opportunity for hope to be born; the gathered body of Christ is responding in a way that would be difficult for any of us individually, and so far is not how the contemporary culture responds. And in this way, we are proclaiming that God’s promises still live in us – in our church. No matter how barren things seem, there is always something brewing in our hearts. They just need to be stirred up a bit by one another so the ideas become actions – actions of love and good works. So, let’s keep stirring one another. Amen.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Relocate. Redistribute. Reconcile.
Mark 12:38-44
November 8, 2009
We look at her with such great admiration…the widow who gave her last mite to support the church. But, I am fairly confident “admiration” was not the first word that came to the disciples’ minds that day when Jesus had them observe her at the treasury box. She must have looked weird. I mean really weird. Jesus had just told them how the church leaders “devour widows’ houses.” He was talking about the practices of taking the land – and all the income from that land – away from women after their husbands died under the pretext that the church would then care for the widows as the husband did. Knowing this, now they’re sitting on the curb looking across the street at a widow giving everything she has to the very organization that took her land and left her destitute. It must have seemed odd, to say the least.
But don’t a lot of people look odd to us? Aren’t there times when we see what choices someone makes and think, “Why in the world would they choose that?”
At the church I worked at during seminary, there was a man with whom I became quite acquainted. He had needs. Lots of them. And they were constant and urgent; he lived from crisis to crisis. And it really did seem like he had the luck of a pig in a giant hog confinement. Sometimes he came by to talk; sometimes he wanted help with this or that; and sometimes he didn’t show up for quite a while. And over my three years there we helped him a lot, though not every time he asked because our resources were limited as a small church.
One day he came and explained to me he needed $100 to pay the landlord to keep from being evicted. I knew the church didn’t have enough for that, so I gave him the money myself. The agreement was that he would pay it back. My feelings were incredibly mixed doing this, but, I told myself, I had $100 and he didn’t. I was not facing eviction, he was. So, I gave him the money.
Not too much later, he stopped by again and said he had been evicted. “Really?” I asked. “Yeah. I had to give the $100 you gave me to my friend who was really in trouble.” The mixed feelings turned into feelings of resentment. I didn’t get it. He, on the other hand, had no sense whatsoever that I would have a problem with this.
I felt like what I imagine the disciples felt like watching that poor widow – utter disbelief. He had a chance to help himself get through a crisis and keep housing – something one clearly must do to make it in this world. And he blew it. He acted in a completely self-destructive way – with my money. Not only was he evicted, but frankly he was not likely to see another dime from me any time soon. Sometimes I just don’t understand the decisions people make.
A couple of weeks ago I attended a conference as a part of my continuing education. The conference was put on by an organization called CCDA: Christian Community Development Association. One workshop was called, “Tear Down the Walls: Why the Poor Stay Poor”. One of the biggest walls this person talked about that kept the poor poor was a wall of misunderstanding. There is a socioeconomic cultural divide in our country, she explained, and without some understanding of it we will forever be misguided in our attempts to help people.
Now as is true whenever we talk about cultures, one must over generalize. That is always a dangerous thing to do, but I think there are some insights for us – those of us generally from the middle class culture of America – that might be helpful if we want to alleviate poverty. So, knowing we are dealing in generalizations, here are some cultural differences our workshop leader pointed out between the middle class and poor:
In terms of how one understands the future, most poor people believe in fate, while the middle class believes choice changes the future. Most of us believe you can directly affect your future with good choices. Many poor people, however, truly believe that no matter how good one’s choices are, you can’t really change your future.
Another related difference is in how we view time. For many people who live in poverty, the present is the most important. Whatever is happening at the moment has the highest priority. Everything is a crisis. If someone has a doctor’s appointment but on their way they get a call from a friend who needs a ride, the immediate crisis takes precedence over something that can be done another time.
Middle class culture is future oriented, and so time is to be managed. If we have a doctor’s appointment and a friend calls needing a ride, we realize that missing the doctor’s appointment will have future ramifications and so we don’t drop everything to go pick up the friend. We’re more likely to ask the friend to see if they can find another ride, or if they can wait an hour, or to simply say we can’t because we have a previous commitment.
With these differences in mind, think about my friend who had different ideas about how to use the money I gave him. I now realize that being evicted wasn’t the end of the world for him as it would be for me. He had friends who were used to people coming in and out during bouts of homelessness. I’m sure he had often had friends on his couch after they had failed to make rent. However, to not give a friend $100 when they are in crisis would violate a cultural value and would have put him at great odds with the community he depends on for survival. I suspect this is why he saw absolutely nothing wrong with it, and would have wondered why in the world I did.
There are many more examples. And I have, over the years, come to experience and appreciate many of these cultural differences. But here’s the important thing to remember: middle class cultural is normative. All of our institutions and systems assume it. We don’t even know it’s there, or even call it culture. Consequently, middle class culture is privileged. We judge negatively anything that deviates from this norm. We assume (without really even thinking about it) that our cultural values are better than others.
But that’s just not true. There is good and bad in all cultures – ALL. We could stand some critique from the cultural of some of our poorer brothers and sisters. Our culture is much more likely to breed conformity and lack of spontaneity. Our culture tends to build relationships based on contracts and obligations, not on support and sacrifice. We tend to prize self-sufficiency more than interdependence.
The big mistake we – well intentioned, middle class church goers – make is thinking that helping someone means helping them move from the culture of poverty to the culture of middle class. This expectation completely invalidates what someone values. It asks someone to leave what they know and become something they are not. The answer to poverty is not to make everyone who is poor into someone who looks like us. It’s not fair. It’s not good. It’s not Christian. It’s not what Jesus did.
So what did Jesus do? First and foremost, he makes people see. He opens their eyes to both the cultural differences and the arrogance of cultural exceptionalism by having some people sit down on the side of the road and watch what happens at the temple. Jesus points out to the disciples the stark and embarrassing reality: the widow is being exploited by the very same people who think they are trying to help her. The cultural critique is not of the widow, that’s for sure. He is exposing the problems with the normative culture.
Jesus lays it all out and makes us stare at the bare naked truth – and it’s uncomfortable. It was undoubtedly uncomfortable for the disciples to see their institutions exposed that way, and it is uncomfortable for us. We are reminded that even though we give our money and our time to help others, we rarely stop and look at how so much of what we do in our day to day lives actually contributes to keeping people poor. We rarely think about the fact that we judge the values of the people we try to help, and we believe they would be better off if they were more like us. That part’s not so fun to see.
When Jesus says to the disciples about the wealthy, “all of them contributed out of their abundance,” the disciples and we are to still have ringing in our ears the truth about the source of that abundance: they devoured the widows’ houses. They took back the land, and then doled out help to the widows as they saw fit, now that the widows were completely dependent on the church.
It’s all laid out for us too. The bare naked truth. We give money to the poor, but why are they poor? And do we really give money, or do we send them cultural expectations tied to dollar bills? Most of us are pretty critical of the decisions people make when we give them our money. Most of us have pretty clear expectations of what “good life skills” look like and expect some display of effort on the part of the person we give money to.
This all leaves us with complicated questions and no simple solutions. How do we, as individuals and as a church, really help the poor? No one is disputing how violent and horrible poverty can be. Valuing the culture of people living in poverty should never be the same as valuing or over-romanticizing poverty itself. We need to do something.
The CCDA has three words that guide what they do: Relocate. Redistribute. Reconcile. First and foremost, they say, you have to move from what you know to what someone else knows. For many in the organization that has literally meant moving to another neighborhood, into the culture of poverty. It has meant being neighbors with people before being their benefactors. It has meant listening, being wildly uncomfortable, being humbled, being angered, and loving. It is the necessary first step. Until we have lived a week as a widow with three children, no land or income, in a country where women can’t go out on their own we are probably not going to have any idea why the widow put every last cent she had into the church coffers. It may have been magnificently generous, and it may have been monumentally stupid. We can’t know without really knowing her.
Redistribute. The bottom line of poverty requires a redistribution of wealth. I know Cal Thomas would jump all over me for that. But poverty is, by definition, a lack of necessary resources. And that is caused by an unjust distribution of resources – not just money, but fertile land, health care, education, access to power, and on and on. And it’s a redistribution, so YES, that means people with more will – after redistributing – have less. To give out of wealth and expect to always still be wealthy is probably not a long term strategy to end poverty.
Reconcile. The truth is, real reconciliation can only happen after we relocate and redistribute. We have to value our differences and stop our efforts to change people just because we think something works for us. Only then – only when we accept the validity of other cultures and reduce the disparity between people can we truly help each other cultivate the good things in our lives and cultures and change the things that keep us from flourishing – as individuals and communities.
It’s time for us to sit on the curb and watch the widow at the temple; to sit with the tension we feel as people who want to help, try to help, but often share more blame than we would like to admit for the realities of poverty in the first place. We have to be honest – name both our genuine desires to help and our inherent complicity. We have to own our judgments based on cultural exceptionalism. Then in humility, we can go up to the widow and ask her, quite simply, “Why are you giving that money? It’s all you have.” Maybe in her answer we will hear how to better live out our obligation to protect the vulnerable and marginalized. Maybe, once we are honest about who and where we are and once we have risked to be in true relationship with people who live in a different cultural reality, the sophisticated answers to the complicated questions will begin to emerge. Maybe together we can find ways to truly help not just this poor person and that widow, but help end the cycles of poverty without destroying the culture of others. Amen.
November 8, 2009
We look at her with such great admiration…the widow who gave her last mite to support the church. But, I am fairly confident “admiration” was not the first word that came to the disciples’ minds that day when Jesus had them observe her at the treasury box. She must have looked weird. I mean really weird. Jesus had just told them how the church leaders “devour widows’ houses.” He was talking about the practices of taking the land – and all the income from that land – away from women after their husbands died under the pretext that the church would then care for the widows as the husband did. Knowing this, now they’re sitting on the curb looking across the street at a widow giving everything she has to the very organization that took her land and left her destitute. It must have seemed odd, to say the least.
But don’t a lot of people look odd to us? Aren’t there times when we see what choices someone makes and think, “Why in the world would they choose that?”
At the church I worked at during seminary, there was a man with whom I became quite acquainted. He had needs. Lots of them. And they were constant and urgent; he lived from crisis to crisis. And it really did seem like he had the luck of a pig in a giant hog confinement. Sometimes he came by to talk; sometimes he wanted help with this or that; and sometimes he didn’t show up for quite a while. And over my three years there we helped him a lot, though not every time he asked because our resources were limited as a small church.
One day he came and explained to me he needed $100 to pay the landlord to keep from being evicted. I knew the church didn’t have enough for that, so I gave him the money myself. The agreement was that he would pay it back. My feelings were incredibly mixed doing this, but, I told myself, I had $100 and he didn’t. I was not facing eviction, he was. So, I gave him the money.
Not too much later, he stopped by again and said he had been evicted. “Really?” I asked. “Yeah. I had to give the $100 you gave me to my friend who was really in trouble.” The mixed feelings turned into feelings of resentment. I didn’t get it. He, on the other hand, had no sense whatsoever that I would have a problem with this.
I felt like what I imagine the disciples felt like watching that poor widow – utter disbelief. He had a chance to help himself get through a crisis and keep housing – something one clearly must do to make it in this world. And he blew it. He acted in a completely self-destructive way – with my money. Not only was he evicted, but frankly he was not likely to see another dime from me any time soon. Sometimes I just don’t understand the decisions people make.
A couple of weeks ago I attended a conference as a part of my continuing education. The conference was put on by an organization called CCDA: Christian Community Development Association. One workshop was called, “Tear Down the Walls: Why the Poor Stay Poor”. One of the biggest walls this person talked about that kept the poor poor was a wall of misunderstanding. There is a socioeconomic cultural divide in our country, she explained, and without some understanding of it we will forever be misguided in our attempts to help people.
Now as is true whenever we talk about cultures, one must over generalize. That is always a dangerous thing to do, but I think there are some insights for us – those of us generally from the middle class culture of America – that might be helpful if we want to alleviate poverty. So, knowing we are dealing in generalizations, here are some cultural differences our workshop leader pointed out between the middle class and poor:
In terms of how one understands the future, most poor people believe in fate, while the middle class believes choice changes the future. Most of us believe you can directly affect your future with good choices. Many poor people, however, truly believe that no matter how good one’s choices are, you can’t really change your future.
Another related difference is in how we view time. For many people who live in poverty, the present is the most important. Whatever is happening at the moment has the highest priority. Everything is a crisis. If someone has a doctor’s appointment but on their way they get a call from a friend who needs a ride, the immediate crisis takes precedence over something that can be done another time.
Middle class culture is future oriented, and so time is to be managed. If we have a doctor’s appointment and a friend calls needing a ride, we realize that missing the doctor’s appointment will have future ramifications and so we don’t drop everything to go pick up the friend. We’re more likely to ask the friend to see if they can find another ride, or if they can wait an hour, or to simply say we can’t because we have a previous commitment.
With these differences in mind, think about my friend who had different ideas about how to use the money I gave him. I now realize that being evicted wasn’t the end of the world for him as it would be for me. He had friends who were used to people coming in and out during bouts of homelessness. I’m sure he had often had friends on his couch after they had failed to make rent. However, to not give a friend $100 when they are in crisis would violate a cultural value and would have put him at great odds with the community he depends on for survival. I suspect this is why he saw absolutely nothing wrong with it, and would have wondered why in the world I did.
There are many more examples. And I have, over the years, come to experience and appreciate many of these cultural differences. But here’s the important thing to remember: middle class cultural is normative. All of our institutions and systems assume it. We don’t even know it’s there, or even call it culture. Consequently, middle class culture is privileged. We judge negatively anything that deviates from this norm. We assume (without really even thinking about it) that our cultural values are better than others.
But that’s just not true. There is good and bad in all cultures – ALL. We could stand some critique from the cultural of some of our poorer brothers and sisters. Our culture is much more likely to breed conformity and lack of spontaneity. Our culture tends to build relationships based on contracts and obligations, not on support and sacrifice. We tend to prize self-sufficiency more than interdependence.
The big mistake we – well intentioned, middle class church goers – make is thinking that helping someone means helping them move from the culture of poverty to the culture of middle class. This expectation completely invalidates what someone values. It asks someone to leave what they know and become something they are not. The answer to poverty is not to make everyone who is poor into someone who looks like us. It’s not fair. It’s not good. It’s not Christian. It’s not what Jesus did.
So what did Jesus do? First and foremost, he makes people see. He opens their eyes to both the cultural differences and the arrogance of cultural exceptionalism by having some people sit down on the side of the road and watch what happens at the temple. Jesus points out to the disciples the stark and embarrassing reality: the widow is being exploited by the very same people who think they are trying to help her. The cultural critique is not of the widow, that’s for sure. He is exposing the problems with the normative culture.
Jesus lays it all out and makes us stare at the bare naked truth – and it’s uncomfortable. It was undoubtedly uncomfortable for the disciples to see their institutions exposed that way, and it is uncomfortable for us. We are reminded that even though we give our money and our time to help others, we rarely stop and look at how so much of what we do in our day to day lives actually contributes to keeping people poor. We rarely think about the fact that we judge the values of the people we try to help, and we believe they would be better off if they were more like us. That part’s not so fun to see.
When Jesus says to the disciples about the wealthy, “all of them contributed out of their abundance,” the disciples and we are to still have ringing in our ears the truth about the source of that abundance: they devoured the widows’ houses. They took back the land, and then doled out help to the widows as they saw fit, now that the widows were completely dependent on the church.
It’s all laid out for us too. The bare naked truth. We give money to the poor, but why are they poor? And do we really give money, or do we send them cultural expectations tied to dollar bills? Most of us are pretty critical of the decisions people make when we give them our money. Most of us have pretty clear expectations of what “good life skills” look like and expect some display of effort on the part of the person we give money to.
This all leaves us with complicated questions and no simple solutions. How do we, as individuals and as a church, really help the poor? No one is disputing how violent and horrible poverty can be. Valuing the culture of people living in poverty should never be the same as valuing or over-romanticizing poverty itself. We need to do something.
The CCDA has three words that guide what they do: Relocate. Redistribute. Reconcile. First and foremost, they say, you have to move from what you know to what someone else knows. For many in the organization that has literally meant moving to another neighborhood, into the culture of poverty. It has meant being neighbors with people before being their benefactors. It has meant listening, being wildly uncomfortable, being humbled, being angered, and loving. It is the necessary first step. Until we have lived a week as a widow with three children, no land or income, in a country where women can’t go out on their own we are probably not going to have any idea why the widow put every last cent she had into the church coffers. It may have been magnificently generous, and it may have been monumentally stupid. We can’t know without really knowing her.
Redistribute. The bottom line of poverty requires a redistribution of wealth. I know Cal Thomas would jump all over me for that. But poverty is, by definition, a lack of necessary resources. And that is caused by an unjust distribution of resources – not just money, but fertile land, health care, education, access to power, and on and on. And it’s a redistribution, so YES, that means people with more will – after redistributing – have less. To give out of wealth and expect to always still be wealthy is probably not a long term strategy to end poverty.
Reconcile. The truth is, real reconciliation can only happen after we relocate and redistribute. We have to value our differences and stop our efforts to change people just because we think something works for us. Only then – only when we accept the validity of other cultures and reduce the disparity between people can we truly help each other cultivate the good things in our lives and cultures and change the things that keep us from flourishing – as individuals and communities.
It’s time for us to sit on the curb and watch the widow at the temple; to sit with the tension we feel as people who want to help, try to help, but often share more blame than we would like to admit for the realities of poverty in the first place. We have to be honest – name both our genuine desires to help and our inherent complicity. We have to own our judgments based on cultural exceptionalism. Then in humility, we can go up to the widow and ask her, quite simply, “Why are you giving that money? It’s all you have.” Maybe in her answer we will hear how to better live out our obligation to protect the vulnerable and marginalized. Maybe, once we are honest about who and where we are and once we have risked to be in true relationship with people who live in a different cultural reality, the sophisticated answers to the complicated questions will begin to emerge. Maybe together we can find ways to truly help not just this poor person and that widow, but help end the cycles of poverty without destroying the culture of others. Amen.
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